For my weekly writing spot on this site, see the One-Minute Mystic, with a new meditation posted every Monday. Also see The Village, the story of Misty Longings, England's most beautiful village, posted episode by episode earlier this year.       Perhaps in time it will simply be known as The Battle of Adcock's Green. Or should that be Adcocks Green? Suddenly, punctuation is headline news. Hold the front page, and employ only your finest sub-editors; for Birmingham City Council is removing apostrophes from its signs, and everyone's stirred. They are not the first. America dropped apostrophes from signs in 1890 and Australia in 2001; so is it time for a full stop here as well? As a spokesman from the Council said, "The monarchy no longer owns King's Heath, and the Adcock family certainly don't own Adcock's Green; so the possessive apostrophe is inappropriate." Supporting them is the Plain English Society who says there is no rule in Britain with regard to possessive apostrophes in place names. Yet rule or no rule, the council have had to admit that "we're constantly getting residents asking for apostrophes to be put back in." The apostrophe is a simple soul, and unused to its private life being picked apart in public. It doesn't have ten commandments, but two; and these it does its best to keep. Either it replaces a missing letter, as in "you're"; or, it denotes possession, as in "Adcock's Green" – the Green that belongs to Adcock. What it doesn't do is plurals; despite the best efforts of commerce. To write: "1000's of bargains!" is to err and stray; "1000s of bargains!" is the claim of the wise retailer. Fighting this small corner of English heritage is the heroic Apostrophe Protection Society, founded in Boston, Lincolnshire, by John Richards in 2001. A former journalist, he sees text everywhere punctuated with error, and it's not just Birmingham Council. Starbucks is a chain of coffee houses named after one person – a character in Moby Dick – so it should be Starbuck's. But the company prefer it as Starbucks. "It's a bad example to children and teachers," says John. "It's a simple rule and so many people get it wrong." What is at stake in the Battle of Adcock's Green? This is not a conflict about the niceties of punctuation; for like the Sabbath, punctuation exists to serve people, not to be served by them. Rather, it is a battle for the memory. What the possessive apostrophe does is remind us about origins; about how things were and how they came to be. This is not a fashionable concern in a society whose mantra is "Let's just move on!" But whether on a national or personal level, to move on without reflecting on what brought us to this particular place is a small suicide of the soul. The past need neither enslave nor define us; but it happened, it shaped us, and we move on most wonderfully pondering these things in our hearts. Some suggest losing the apostrophe, but keeping the history, by inserting an "of", as in that popular London railway terminal, "The Cross of the King," or, "The Green of Adcock." It's true; it doesn't belong to Adcock now. But it did once; and that makes all the difference. More writings © Simon Parke