Definition: A mark of punctuation, the apostrophe indicates the omission of one or more letters. The phrase would not becomes the contraction wouldn't with the apostrophe indicating the missing o. In gov't, a shortened form of government, the apostrophe indicates several missing letters.
The apostrophe is used for some plurals and possessives: 5's (plural) or Jill's (possessive)
The glyph used for the apostrophe can vary depending on the type of document. In typewritten or plain (unformatted) text the apostrophe is usually an upright (or slightly slanted) single straight tick mark ('). On a standard QWERTY keyboard the key for this mark is between the semi-colon and ENTER keys. In properly typeset material, a curly or typeset apostrophe is the correct glyph to use (’). This is the same character used as the right or closed quote when using single quote marks. It varies by typeface, but it generally looks like a comma except it sits up above the baseline.
- On a Mac, use Shift+Option+] for a curly apostrophe. For Windows, use ALT 0146 (hold down the ALT key and type the numbers on the numeric keypad).
- In HTML, code the character as & #0146; for ’
Pronunciation: [uh-pos-truh-fee]
Examples:
See the links, below, for characters that look like an apostrophe but aren't, as well as controversy over whether or not it's even needed. And if the differences between the right and wrong apostrophe is all too confusing, mind your p's and q's while you learn to differentiate it's and its in the grammar lessons devoted to the apostrophe.
