Mere Semantics

"Please discard your cigarette's in the proper recepticle".

Teacher>> What is wrong with the above sentence? Billy, do you know?
Billy>> Well yes... I think that cigarettes should not have an appostrophy. It isn't possesing anything.
Teacher>> Yes Billy! Absolutly correct.

That is a scene which ought to be played out in 2nd grade classrooms across America, and yet, sadly, on college campuses today employees much older than Billy prove to have much less control over the English language. Another example, though perhaps more picky:

"Please do not walk in the flower beds, it is killing the flowers".

Here we have a comma seperating two complete sentences. I should point out that what seperates me from any real grammarian is that I have no clue what that missused comma is called. No, I am just an ordinary guy who knows the English language. At any rate, you cannot seperate two complete sentances with a comma. A period is most commonly used for this, though (my personal preferance) a semi-colon can be used. Observe:

WRONG: Dick went to the store, Bill went to school.
CORRECT: Dick went to the store. Bill went to school.
CORRECT: Dick went to the store; Bill went to school.
OR EVEN: Dick went to the store while Bill went to school.

We have a wonderful language, and it pains me to see it trampled on like this. Or perhaps I should say:

Please do not trample on the English language; it is making us sound like idiots.