On my word doc when I press the apostrophe button it defaults to **’** (slanted).
However, when I press it on websites (such as Google and Reddit), it defaults to **’** (straight).
What is the difference between the two, why do the two exist, and why is it that docs default to slanted; while, webs default to straight?
In: Other
A much more interesting backstory to this than I was expecting. So the original apostrophe is the [curly variant](https://www.glossophilia.org/wp-content/uploads/strophe.png), but when typewriters came into use, it was better to have the straight apostrophe ‘ as it was one symbol that could represent the apostrophe, opening and closing single quotes, and even the exclamation point if you went back and added a period below it. Transitioning from typewriters to early computers, the straight variant was kept and used in ASCII for the apostrophe. Thus it was the character used in many programming languages. As computing improved, the Unicode system came into play and compiled even more symbols into computing use, including the slanted variant ‘ which is just a stylized version of the original curly variant. The Unicode system is used by many word processors and ‘ is the chief Unicode apostrophe variant. There is no real difference between their functionality other than ‘ being used for programming. For the most part, computing nowadays uses the Unicode system and thus favors the slanted variant, so it is really just an aesthetic choice in most situations for a user interface based on the opinions of the programmer and may vary from app to app.
Word automatically substitutes stylised quotation marks for some typefaces (by default, where available?). Such quotation marks are meant to be used as a pair, to be opened (‘ “ ❛ ❝) and closed (’ ” ❜ ❞).
The neutral (straight) version is normally used for plain or fixed-width typefaces, where you don’t need fancy formatting, and don’t care to run auto-correct in the background.
The grave accent is used mostly for international input, where the slant is used for accents on vowels, like áéíóú.
> What is the difference between the two
Both characters represent the same punctuation mark in English.
> why do the two exist, and why is it that docs default to slanted
Typesetting software does this because it is recommended by the [Unicode standard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode), which is a mostly universal technical standard for writing systems and textual representation. The Unicode Consortium, who are responsible for the standard, lay out their reasoning for this recommendation within the standards text. The relevant section is quoted below.
[Unicode 13.0.0 §6.2](http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch06.pdf)
> **Writing Systems and Punctuation > General Punctuation**
> […]
> **Apostrphes**
> U+0027 **APOSTROPHE** is the most commonly used character for apostrophe. For historical reasons, U+0027 is a particularly overloaded character. In ASCII, it is used to represent a punctuation mark (such as right single quotation mark, left single quotation mark, apostrophe punctuation, vertical line, or prime) or a modifier letter (such as apostrophe modifier or acute accent). Punctuation marks generally break words; modifier letters generally are considered part of a word.
> When text is set, U+2019 **RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK** is preferred as apostrophe, but only U+0027 is present on most keyboards. Software commonly offers a facility for automatically converting the U+0027 **APOSTROPHE** to a contextually selected curly quotation glyph. In these systems, a U+0027 in the data stream is always represented as a straight vertical line and can never represent a curly apostrophe or a right quotation mark.
“U+0027” like terms are escape codes used to unambiguously refer to specific unicode codepoints. For this purpose, a codepoint is the same as a character. U+0027 is the straight apostrophe and U+2019 is the slanted one.
The full section goes on to clarify the meaning of U+2019 and also the use of U+02BC as an apostrophe.
> why […] webs default to straight?
Sites like Google and Reddit or even your browser address bar aren’t there to typeset text for you. It’s more important that exactly what you type is what ends up in the address bar / search box.
TL;DR: The people who make the standards think the straight mark (U+0027 ‘ APOSTROPHE) is too confusing because it has overloaded usage in English, so instead they recommend the curly one (U+2019 ’ RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK) for use as the apostrophe in typesetting software.
Better to check r/answers.
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