English spellings/Catalogs/Apostrophe

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Use in English
Alphabetical word list
Retroalphabetical list  
Common misspellings  

Initial

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".

Words that begin with an apostrophe are:

’em them = um hmmm *əm

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

Final and medial

Final apostrophes usually follow an s to form the genitive plural of nouns; otherwise, like medial apostrophes, they signify a missing letter or letters. Hence there is no point in listing examples; for more see the main article.