morbane

Posted by Victor Mair

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Or does it even have a tail? 

Facebook post by David J. Loftus:

Let me tell you flat out that, as much as possible, I do not slant a typed apostrophe rightward or leftward, nor do I give it  a tail or hook, but I do so when writing them by hand.  Where it gets tricky is when "smart" machines add these elaborations when I don't want them.  Though I may stubbornly try to type ', ', ', etc., the machine often wins and insists on adding a frill.

I realize that I am on shaky ground here, but there is at least one other punctuation mark that looks like an apostrophe.  That's the closing single quotation mark, also known as a curly apostrophe or typesetter's apostrophe.  There are still other punctuation marks that look like the apostrophe, but it would be tedious to list them all, and probably impossible to print them here.  Moreover, these marks are technically different in Unicode, but often appear identical in certain fonts or, as one user on Quora noted, are substituted due to keyboard limitations.

When handwriting, one may vary the marks as one pleases, but when typing, at least for me, it is usually easier just to stick to the humble '.  Only a copy editor or a typographer could set them all straight.

My late friend, Michael Carr, lived on Kaua'i for many years and passed away in Kapa'a, its largest settlement.  Though I visited and stayed with him in those places, I could never get used to how to handle the "apostrophes" in them.  Greatest heresy of all, though I went to Hawaii many times and published numerous books from the University of Hawai'i Press, I was always stymied by the 'okina (reversed apostrophe).  In correspondence with linguists who cared about the language or representatives of the Press or other people who really cared about the name, I would at least insert good ol' '.  However, when I'm communicating with people who don't have a vested interest in  "Hawaiʻi" (N.B.!), I often just go for "Hawaii".  For the more linguistically savvy, I'm apt to use "Hawai'i".

Selected readings

• "Jonathan Swift v. Apostrophes" (11/25/24) — the peeve lode for apostrophes, with well over a dozen entries in its bibliography, but it's mainly about whether to have them or not.  What Mr. Loftus is talking about is how they should be designed and oriented.
• "Apostrophe catastrophe" (1/31/09)
• "Michael Edward Carr, lexicographer, R.I.P." (9/12/25)

[Thanks to Tim Leonard]

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