Comments on: Apostrophe Atrophy

By: Jeremy Sutton

Jeremy Sutton — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 19:57:28 +0000

Thank you, Chris, for highlighting this! A wonderful book that I recommend to everyone is “The Mac is not a typewriter” (and there is a PC version too) by Robin Williams (author, not actor):
http://www.amazon.com/Mac-Not-Typewriter-Professional-Level-Macintosh/dp/0938151312
Cheryl raises an excellent point about about how smart apostrophes so easily become dumb ones and at the same time straight inches become curly quotation marks when you don’t want them to. Part of the culprit is Microsoft Word’s default settings. To correct this situation in Word go to Format > AutoFormat, click on Options and go through each tab (AutoCorrect, AutoFormat as you type and AutoFormat) unchecking the Replace \Straight quotes\ with “Smart Quotes”. This allows you to use straight inches and feet symbols and when you hold down the Option/Alt key while clicking on the curly bracket keys you get all the smart quotes you need (Shift reverses the directions). I know that all sounds complex but once you get in the habit it really isn’t! Good luck:-)

By: Anne

Anne — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:24:26 +0000

I agree with Florida that this is some highly specialized stuff, but for those of us who have actually had to convert all of the quotation marks and apostrophes in pages and pages of printed material, it is very relatable. I was also a copy editor for three local newspapers, and anytime I would import anything from a Word document, I would get dumb quotes. (Thank you MS!) My boss there called them “hash marks” and would correct my copy editing by just writing “hash” on the dummies. Ugh – I do not miss that…

By: Case

Case — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:43:25 +0000

And yet you accept the smart quotes around The “Wire” when the title of the show is “The Wire”. They don’t look like very smart quotes to me.

By: the creature

the creature — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:26:49 +0000

oooooooooooooohhh.

i see it now.

By: Sara

Sara — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:49:51 +0000

A little off-topic, but I found a sign right down the road from me posted on that Signs of Life blog. There must be a kindred spirit nearby…

By: Florida

Florida — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:33:58 +0000

Wow, this is too OCD for my taste.

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:21:13 +0000

I fought these for four years as a proofreader. I proofed pages of catalogs for companies that sold sports equipment, and I would see this all the time, but just the opposite. We used a lot of inch and foot marks on the pages, and it would drive me nuts to see smart quotes instead of inch marks, the latter of which are straight. I painstakingly went through all of our pages and carefully replaced all the smart quotes every time. Quark, the old publishing application, automatically imported them as smart quotes. So annoying.

Inexplicably, the straight-up-and-down ones always ended up in the copy body in place of apostrophes. I was so close to going all proofreader on Quark’s ass.

By: Higgins

Higgins — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:51:27 +0000

Okay, I’ve added a little explanation right below the image.

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:45:36 +0000

Like the creature, I’m stumped. I’m confused by this whole post, and I don’t see what’s wrong with the image shown. Can you explain?

By: Higgins

Higgins — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:37:35 +0000

Proper apostrophes (and quotation marks) should be curved, and are called “smart.” Dumb ones are just straight up and down.