The apostrophe has two functions. It takes the place of a letter or number that has been removed from a word (is not becomes isn’t, Patent No. 5,269,211 becomes ’211.). It also indicates the possessive case (Larry’s bagel). Ordinarily, you type an apostrophe with the same key you use to type a single straight quote ('). Your word processor will convert this character to a proper typographic apostrophe using a curly closing single quote (’).
This works, but with two caveats. First, text imported or pasted into a document from a plain-text source (e.g. a deposition transcript or email) may not have its apostrophes properly converted to curly apostrophes. To fix this, use the search-and-replace technique described in straight quotes and curly quotes.
Second, neither Word nor WP will notice when an apostrophe is used at the beginning of the word. If you type the phrase
In the '60s, rock 'n' roll
Word and WP will display this as
In the ‘60s, rock ‘n’ roll
Typographically, this is incorrect. This phrase contains contractions for 1960s and rock and roll. Each sequence of omitted letters should be replaced with an apostrophe, like so:
In the ’60s, rock ’n’ roll
To get the right result, you can manually replace the open single quotes with an apostrophe copied from another location. Or you can coax Word or WP into giving you the right character by typing the apostrophes twice:
In the ''60s, rock ''n' roll
Word and WP will display this as
In the ‘’60s, rock ‘’n’ roll
Then you can delete the unneeded characters. (Word has an even quicker shortcut—hold down the control key and type the single quote twice.)
Finally, if you ever have occasion to set Hawaiian names, look out—those apostrophe-like characters aren’t apostrophes. Each represents a glottal stop, a letter in the Hawaiian alphabet that doesn’t exist in English. Use the open single curly quote to represent a glottal stop, not an apostrophe. By default, Word and WP will assume you’re typing an apostrophe and will not give you the right character.
Hawai’i O’ahu Kaho’olawe
Hawai‘i O‘ahu Kaho‘olawe
It’s also acceptable to use anglicized spellings and omit the glottal stop.
Hawaii Oahu Kahoolawe
I’m incrediably impressed you’ve got a mention in there for the Hawaiian okina, the glottal stop.
What about the Officers’ mess.
nice, really nice!
Here’s a shorter MS Word trick for getting the opening apostrophe to face the right way for things like the ’60s. Type Ctrl+’,Ctrl+’ (i.e. hold down Ctrl while double-tapping apostrophe). Word will input a forward facing apostrophe.
Great site. In your next version, you might want to mention the proper use of the Prime symbol. When you want to type a prime symbol (which looks like an italicized straight quote), MS Word substitutes a curly single quote). I haven’t bothered to take the time to learn how to type a true prime symbol, so I just italicize a straight quote, but if you know how to do it, please share.
For those of your readers who don’t know when to use a prime, the most common example (outside of a math textbook) is as an abbreviation for Foot. The double prime commonly abbreviates Inch.
The other common use for a prime is the abbreviation for Minute (one sixtieth of a degree of latitude or longitude). The double prime stands for Second (one sixtieth of a minute).