Mark Williams wrote:
> The apostrophe is not correct anyway. It denotes a missed letter, in
> this word-position it would be 'doctor is', as opposed to the
> non-apostrophe version meaning 'belong to the the doctor' or plural
> doctors.
Heehee, don't get me started.
"doctor's" is the appropriate usage to denote possession ("belonging
to the doctor"). And it does denote a missed letter... just a long
while ago.
The Old English genitive of *doctor would have been "doctores", with
something similar carried through into Middle English, and that "e"
is what the apostrophe is replacing.
cheers
Richard
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