I keep this link on my toolbar, to cut and paste whatever I need.
Thanks guys and gals. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t know the apostrophe direction rule. I write & edit for a living!
Now that I know, it’s not difficult to do a search to replace the errant backwards little dudes.
But this has nothing to do with my comment. I was responding to the OP saying that in Word sometimes “writing 'em will result in a left-facing curly quote, and sometimes a right-facing one.” I couldn’t find an example of that. I was referring only to consistency. Word is consistent. We can argue whether it’s right, but I still haven’t seen any examples of inconsistency like the one the OP gave.
OH! That wasn’t clear, Exapno Mapcase – it sounded as if you were answering my question about which direction the apostrophe should go with your own rule. At least that’s how I read it, and I guess how lissener read it, too. No worries, it makes sense now.
I do think you’re right. I just wasn’t paying attention to the fact that Word was smart enough to know the single quote was at the start or end of the word. I can be shockingly unobservant at times. Yet I’m not an idiot, I swear!
Fortunately thie open single quote problem doesn’t appear that often for me. 'em doesn’t crop up very much in the story, and there are only a couple of Cockney characters who are dropping their aitches at the beginnings of words–besides, I’m using accents sparingly anyway (too much notating of accents can be hella annoying to read). Anyway, thanks again for your help.
Ah. You didn’t say “in Word,” so I mistakenly assumed you were talking about general typography standards, not Word’s consistent incorrectness.
Additionally, the backwards one is an ʻokina, which is used in many Polynesian languages like Hawai’ian to represent a glottal stop.
So if you character is Cockney, you could use the ʻokina to represent the "swallow-t"s that are inherent in the accent (like in the word “bottle”)–if you want to be really particular.
Since you mention the okina, I will add that a more complete list of apostrophe-resembling typographical characters (since I am sure that we all want to use the correct symbol) should include:
[ul]
[li]vertical typewriter apostrophe unicode 0027[/li][li]single curved quote, left unicode 2018[/li][li]punctuation apostrophe (or right single quotation mark; single comma quotation mark) unicode 2019[/li][li]low single curved quote, left unicode 201A[/li][li]letter apostrophe (or modifier letter apostrophe) unicode 02BC[/li][li]Armenian apostrophe unicode 055A[/li][li]typewrite quote, aka quotation mark unicode 0022[/li][li]double curved quote, or curly quote, left unicode 201C[/li][li]double curved quote, or curly quote, right unicode 201D[/li][li]low double curved quote, left unicode 201E[/li][li]Nenetys language double letter apostrophe unicode 02EE[/li][li]prime, also used to represent feet, arcminutes and sometimes minutes unicode 2032[/li][li]double prime, also used to represent inches, arcseconds and sometimes seconds unicode 2033[/li][li]triple prime unicode 2034[/li][li]quadruple prime unicode 2057[/li][li]modifier letter prime unicode 02B9[/li][li]modifier letter double prime unicode 02BA[/li][li]acute accent[/li][li]double acute accent[/li][li]grave accent[/li][li]double grave accent[/li][li]kreska[/li][li]ʻokina aka fakauʻa, fakamonga, fakamoga, ʻeta, ʻamata, ʻakairo ʻamata (depending on the language) unicode 02BB[/li][li]apex[/li][li]Spiritus lenis unicode 0313, 0486, 1FBF for three different variations[/li][li]Spiritus asper unicode 0314, 1FFE, 0485 for three different variations[/li][li]ayin or modifier letter left half ring, unicode 02BF[/li][/ul]