About 30 years ago, I produced a piece for a television magazine program about the decline in the use of apostrophes in signs around the Amarillo area. (I was a TV reporter in Amarillo at the time.)

The problem was so widespread I had no trouble finding examples of confusion caused by the lack of these little devices.

Of course, nothing changed.

And nothing will change, according to two reports this week, one in "The Wall Street Journal" and the other posted at The Atlantic Wire by Jen Doll.

See, something called The Domestic Names Committee of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names is in charge of assessing proper names of things like mountains and villages and historic sites around the country, and the board hates apostrophes. I don't know why.

I like apostrophes because I think they make things clearer at a small cost.

But, clarity just isn't that important any more -- especially in a world that texts and tweets everything, adopting acronyms and shortcuts for every word and phrase.

About which all one can do is rail until one is hoarse.