English spellings/Catalogs/Apostrophe

From Citizendium
< English spellings‎ | Catalogs
Revision as of 12:37, 25 October 2009 by imported>Ro Thorpe (→‎Initial)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Use in English
Alphabetical word list
Retroalphabetical list  
Common misspellings  

All apostrophes are shaped (in fonts where there are different shapes) like a 9, not a 6, including initial ones (see below): this contrasts with the use of inverted commas, where the opening one is shaped like a 6 (or there can be two: 66) and the closing one like a 9 (or 99): "sixty-sixes and ninety-nines".

Initial

Some words that begin with an apostrophe, where it signifies a letter or letters unpronounced in quoted speech, are:

'át hat = át preposition

’em them = um hmmm *əm

'ër her

'ím him

'ŏrse horse

'òuse house

’tís and ’tẁas - poetic and/or archaic use of initial apostrophe, replacing omitted initial í of ít ís and ít ẁas

Final and medial

Final apostrophes follow an s to form the genitive plural of nouns (Mánx cáts' tâils); otherwise, like initial and medial apostrophes, they signify a missing (because unpronounced in quoted speech) letter or letters, as in gôin' for gôing (n sound replacing ng sound). Where it replaces a t or d, this final apostrophe may be pronounced as a glottal stop; otherwise final apostrophes are silent.