On Aug 25, 2025, at 9:27 AM, Paul Eggert via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
There are two issues here. First, whether to use HTML entities like '/‘/’ versus ordinary characters like '/‘/’. Second, whether to use '/' or ’/’ in English possessives and contractions.
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For the second issue, which is what I think you’re focusing on, there has been considerable confusion and some controversy due to the historical use of ' (U+0027 APOSTROPHE) to mean many things including apostrophe and single quotation marks. On this topic the current Unicode Standard says the following[1]:
When text is set, U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK is preferred as apostrophe.... U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK is preferred where the character is to represent a punctuation mark, as for contractions: “We’ve been here before.” In this latter case, U+2019 is also referred to as a punctuation apostrophe.... The semantics of U+2019 are therefore context dependent. For example, if surrounded by letters or digits on both sides, it behaves as an in-text punctuation character and does not separate words or lines.
Some style guides: MLA: https://style.mla.org/apostrophes-three-ways/ "It should look like a single closing quotation mark, not an opening one." Federal government of Australia: https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/grammar-punctuation-and-conventions/punctuati... They don't seem to say what an apostrophe should look like, but the apostrophes in that text are U+2019.