: Re: Specific use of apostrophe at the beginning of a sentence This is a highly specific scenario for which I haven't been able to find a concrete answer. When you write the contraction 'Tis (It

@Heady158

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Pretty much any software that does “smart” quotes will get this wrong. The correct typesetting for a leading apostrophe is ’tis and not ‘tis (which is what you'll get with smart quotes).
Contrary to what Sciborg has written, there are three apostrophe-like symbols available:

' which has no place in polite company and should only appear in code listings, descriptions of keys on the keyboard and attempts to forge typewritten documents.
’ which, is properly speaking, an apostrophe. This is used for all contractions, whether it appears at the beginning, middle or end of the word: ’tis, ain’t, steppin’. It is also used as a closing quotation mark (on the outer level in most British publications, for quotes within quotes in most American publications).
‘ which is a single opening quotation mark. This is the devil that messes up smart quotation software since when it sees the sequence ' it thinks you must mean the opening quotation mark, even when you don't.

On a Mac, you can directly access the single quotation marks with opt-] and opt-shift-] for ‘ and ’ respectively. Windows expects some bizarre numeric code incantation using the alt key and the number pad. The easiest way to get the correct apostrophe in most software on Windows (or Mac if you're averse to using the opt sequences I mentioned) is to type, e.g., a'Tis and then remove the a.

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