Lovecraftian
John Cowan points out rather sharply to me in email that the originator of the otiose apostrophe is more than likely to be H.P. Lovecraft.
Which may explain much, but I think not all; what I still don’t understand is where some writers got the notion that every word (alternately, every name or place-name) in a particular language has to have a bloody apostrophe in it. Lovecraft certainly didn’t do that.
And even John admitted he doesn’t know where Lovecraft got the idea, though I have a hazy memory of Lovecraft writing somewhere that he didn’t know jack about language and so poured out random characters from his keyboard. Which would explain the apostrophe as well as anything else.
Squamous behavior, I tell you what. Downright batrachian.