English spellings > Catalogs > Apostrophe
From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium
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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.
Some words with final apostrophes, in retroalphabetical order, are:
síngin'
còmin'
*dûín' doin'
gôin'
hávin'
cf. pêople's: përsons'
cáts'
