Worldly punctuation pros know that Germans typically don't use an apostrophe to indicate the possessive—meaning it's correct to write "Newsers readers," not "Newser's readers." According to the Council for German Orthography, however, which dictates grammar for schools and other public institutions in Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, use of the Deppenapostroph (aka the "idiot's apostrophe") has become so rampant that it's now OK to use it, with some parameters, per the Guardian.
The main rule, which went into effect in July, is that the apostrophe can be employed without reservation with proper names—so it would be correct to now write "Mel's Bar," though "Mels eyeglasses" would still be the preferred non-apostrophe version when dealing with a proper name combined with a common noun. Critics of the change fear that the English language's influence is behind the recent linguistic shift.
"Genuflecting to English" is how one detractor on LinkedIn sniffed at the move. "The Germans should have stuck to their guns," one blogger wrote in a post entitled "Germany caves in on apostrophes." "There is a long tradition of conservative circles fretting about international influences on the German languages," linguist Anatol Stefanowitsch of the Free University of Berlin explains to the Guardian. "It used to be French, and now it's mainly English." (More Germany stories.)
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