- Law 30, Replace Missing Characters With Apostrophes.
Keep in mind that an apostrophe is always
a single, closing, curly quotation mark.
If you're using modern word processing
or desktop publishing software, you probably
automatically get a single curly quote
when you type an apostrophe on your keyboard.
There is a setting in the preferences of your software,
and that makes this automatic, it makes
the curly quote automatic, but it's a good idea
to check and make sure, because you don't ever
want to be using straight quotes, ever.
Curly quotes, or curly apostrophes, have been
designed by the typeface's designer to flow
with the text on the page, and also to look visually
consistent with all the other content and all the
other characters in a specific typeface.
Straight quotes are very harsh, they're disruptive.
Straight quotes are basically a holdover from
typewriter days, and should not be used for anything, ever.
No double straight quotes and no single straight quotes.
As a typographer, your main concern with apostrophes
is making sure that the correct character
is being used in the correct place, so let's look at
a few examples to hopefully explain this a little better.
Most people know that apostrophes are used
in contractions, so "did not" becomes "didn't"
and "is not" becomes "isn't."
In these examples we've taken out a letter,
and we've replaced it with an apostrophe.
Here, in both examples we've taken out the letter "o"
and we've simply replaced the "o" with an apostrophe.
Similarly, if you're trying to make a sign
that says "Gone Fishin'" an apostrophe would be
used to show that you've removed the "g"
from the end of the word "Fishing."
You've replaced the letter "g" with an apostrophe.
If you're using a phrase like "Bread 'n' Butter"
in a document, the correct way
to typeset this phrase would be this.
You can see that we've got the letter "n"
and we've got an apostrophe to the left of the "n"
and an apostrophe to the right of the "n."
You've removed two letters here, you removed the "a"
and the "d" from the word "and," and so we've used
an apostrophe in place of each of those missing letters.
When you type this phrase on a keyboard
in your word processing or page layout software,
your software's going to do this.
In this example, the letter "n" is actually being
surrounded by a single opening quotation mark
on the left, and then a single closing quotation mark
on the right, and this is not correct.
We're not trying to show here that the letter "n"
is being quoted, and that's what we've done
by enclosing the letter "n" in quotes.
Remember that an apostrophe is always a single
closing quotation mark, never an opening quotation mark.
In this case, we want to show that we've removed
two letters, so we want two apostrophes.
The problem is that your software package
is not smart enough to know that this is your intent.
What you're going to need to do is copy the closing
quotation mark from the right side of the "n" and paste it
over the opening quotation mark on the left side
of the "n," so that you end up with this.
This is the correct way to typeset this phrase.
Here's another common issue with apostrophes.
If your document contains this sentence,
and it is typeset this way, this is not correct.
The correct way to write this sentence is this.
You can see in our first example that we've got
an apostrophe before the letter "s"
and that is incorrect placement.
That placement shows possession, it shows that
that decade, "the 40's," is owning something,
and in this case that's not true.
So we don't need an apostrophe before the "s."
We need an apostrophe in front of the decade,
in front of the number "4," because here we've removed
two characters, we've removed the number "1"
and the number "9," and we need to replace
those two characters with an apostrophe.
Now, we did remove two characters, but in this case,
because they're consecutive, or they're in a row,
we don't need two apostrophes, we can
just use one apostrophe, and it's fine.
Again, make sure you're using an apostrophe
here and not a single opening quote.
This is not correct, and this may be
what your software does automatically.
Remember that apostrophes are always closing
quotation marks, not opening quotation marks.
Apostrophes are not special characters,
and are accessible from a standard keyboard.
But keep in mind that curly quotes, or curly apostrophes,
may not always show up in the software that you're using.
So if you're using a piece of software, and it's not
automatically inserting curly apostrophes, you can use
special key combinations to access this character.
On a Macintosh, you would create a curly apostrophe
by holding down the Option and Shift keys and then
typing a right square bracket, or a closing square bracket.
And on a computer with the Windows operating system,
you would hold down the Alt key and type the numbers 0146.
If you are a Web designer, curly quotes may not
be automatically generated like they are
in a word processing program, and so if
you're designing Web pages, you would want
to use this character entity for a curly,
single, closing quote, or an apostrophe.
I want to just take a moment and talk
about a personal pet peeve of mine.
I see this issue so often, that I really
feel like it's worth discussing here, to try
and clear up some confusion once and for all.
The issue is "it's" with an apostrophe
versus "its" without an apostrophe.
If you don't remember anything else
about apostrophes, please remember this.
"It's" with an apostrophe is short for "it is" or "it has."
Remember, an apostrophe shows that
characters have been taken out.
Read your sentence out loud, and if you could say
"it is" or "it has" then use "it's" with an apostrophe.
In all other cases, all other cases,
use "its" without an apostrophe.
I'm really hopeful that that will genuinely clear this up,
and keep you from making this mistake.
I know that this is the job of the writer
or the copy editor, to put these apostrophes
in the right place, but I see this so often
that it's pretty clear to me that lots
and lots of people do not understand this rule.
So I really do want to help end the confusion.
Let's summarize.
Apostrophes are used to replace missing characters.
And apostrophes are always single closing quotes.
Apostrophes are not special characters,
and that means they're accessible from your
standard keyboard, but you want to make sure
that your software is correctly set to use
curly quotes instead of straight quotes.
That's Law 30, Replace Missing Characters With Apostrophes.