A discussion of S's

I used to make a thin argument about the reasoning behind what I am now calling The Apostrophe S-yndrome. My argument doesn't hold water, and now I am forced to conclude there is no truly solid explanation for why this happens.

My old argument was one based on the faulty assumption of inconsistency and can be captured in this sentence I just made up:

"If you are going to make greeting card's, you should definitely write Merry Christma's on the front."

If society's inclination is to, as Dave Barry famously said, use the letter 's' only to "alert the reader that an 's' is coming up at the end of the word," then why doesn't anyone misspell Merry Christma's ... or, like, dresse's? It's humorou's.

But I think where people get confused is the mistaken belief that everything plural is also the owner of something, or itself (see: Go Bronco's, magazine's for sale, tasty burrito's). I have come to see I am terrible at explaining why seeing a list of BEER'S on a menu is sickening (and it's not just because I hate beer).

The only thing I can think of is to yell, as a sports editor I know used to say, "Beer's WHAT?"

And they still don't get it.

(I spotted the above image while buying a concert ticket online last month. Maybe they should eliminate those lovely "convenience" charges and hire a copy editor.)