I am not against language change! I embrace new vocabulary that is created for new concepts and things, and am fairly tolerant of regional variations in spelling, pronunciation and grammar.

I despair though, when change is wrought because someone found an aspect of language just too hard.

This seems to be increasingly the case with the use of the apostrophe in English, that humble, hard-working piece of punctuation; marker of contractions and possession.

Why does this come to mind now? Well, five years ago was the last time I had to renew my licence to drive a car, that is, my "Driver's Licence". This week I received in the mail a letter from Queensland Transport, with instructions about how to renew my "Driver Licence". Some time in the last five years, the word "driver" has become an adjective, evidently. A quick check of Google's index suggests that this aberration is only endemic in Queensland and Tasmania, so far. An alternate grammatical explanation would be that the words in "Driver Licence" were so closely linked, that they formed one concept, much like "birthday party". Nevertheless, my licence from five years ago is called a "Driver's Licence", so some official change in language policy has occurred.

However, using an apostrophe for possession is easy! Just consider this: "the licence of the driver". The apostrophe goes after the "r": Driver's Licence. If we have a noun ending in "s", plural or not, then the apostrophe goes after the "s". In all cases, an "s" is added if there isn't one before the apostrophe.

More examples: The school of the children - the children's school. The hat of Hans - Hans' hat. The bikes of the boys - the boys' bikes.

Long live the apostrophe!