Why do we still have so many apostrophes in English?

[Boliviabae]

It takes so much longer to type anything on the phone.

Apostrophe's were originally in place to show two words shortened into one. But the shortened versions of the words have been in the English langauge for so long now, why do we need the apostrophes.

The word 'Dont' for example, is easily understandable, without an apostrophe.

You don't need it though.

Just as much as you are.

You made a lot of grammar mistakes.

As usual, people who can't cope with correct grammar choose to belittle its use.

Isn’t there a Dear John example where the positioning of commas completely changes the meaning, despite the same words being used?

Interestingly, you don't need an apostrophe for words like flu or phone.

That's because they're classed as clipped words rather than contractions. There are words with the "clipped" part at the opposite end that make this clearer, like hippo instead of hippopotamus. You would't write hippo', so in the same way, you wouldn't write 'phone or 'flu.

I find it fascinating! I love the quirks of the English language.

In other languages the lack of apostrophes can lead to far more complex sentences, the amount of time needed to type one extra character is negligible by comparison.

Ok, if you think I'm making up "abosolute" shit, point me to a post before your post of 19:50 (which is the one I quoted) where someone criticises the way your OP is written.

Such as?

I can’t understand what’s so difficult about using apostrophes; they come so naturally to me.
I also think that those who read a lot just absorb the use of the apostrophe by osmosis

If this is the one you mean, it wasn't commas but punctuation in general. It's very clever!!

https://www.thoughtco.com/punctuation-matters-1691746

It's seen as old-fashioned, and possibly now incorrect, but people definitely used to write 'flu and 'phone.

Yes.

Yes, phone "correcting" me caused mistakes. I also said predictive and auto type should be improved, not that it made it okay to make those errors and therefore we shouldn't bother.

If you consistently use them correctly your phone knows to add them in in autocorrect. So I don’t have to type the apostrophe in don’t for my phone to add it in.

"I am" and "I'm" convey the same meaning. A person can write either form and it will be understood and will mean the same thing.

The phrase "I am" is still in common use, as are "do not", "would not", "should have", "cannot" and so on. The words "I'm", "don't", "wouldn't", "should've" and "can't" are the same words/phrases as those mentioned above. The apostrophes merely denote a contraction of the original word or phrase.

If the apostrophes were to be removed, then those contracted words would become entirely different words from the originals, so we would then have two different words/phrases that mean the same thing, rather than just the single word/phrase that we currently have, which we sometimes choose to contract and sometimes don't.

French uses loads of apostrophes!

Won't is a funny one.

… or in my case, still do (and I’m not in my eighties).

A panda eats shoots and leaves …

I used to date an apostrophe but he was too possessive.

I rather like the Scottish "amn't".

There are more in English because most European languages don't use them to show possession unlike in English We might say 'my dad's car "whereas in Spanish it would be 'el coche de mi papá" or in French ' la voiture de mon père"
The literal translation is 'the car of my father:
So the apostrophe allows us to say something in three words that takes five words in other languages.
The apostrophe can also change the meaning of a word.

It's isn't a separate word though it is two words shortened.

No.

Apostrophes that show omission (wouldn't, can't, we're etc) often eventually lose the apostrophe. That's why we have phone and not 'phone or bus and not 'bus. We have plenty of words that were originally two, like fortnight (was fourteen nights) or alright and they probably had apostrophes at one time. It just takes a long time to lose them because we generally don't like change.