Kind of dumb question about apostrophes

The “apostrophe” on the release looks like a an accent character without its base (like é without the e). It is a key on some German keyboard layouts, but it obviously shouldn’t be used instead of an apostrophe.

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On a Mac it is option-shift-]

Just FYI: Discourse, the forum software automatically fixes most punctuation. That’s why both of your examples above look the same.
Depending on how to type the correct apostrophe on your device/system/keyboard it might be easier to copy it from the forum or elsewhere.
I use @jesus2099’ replace script to quickly replace all “wrong” apostrophes on a release.
Otherwise I’d have to press Alt Gr + Shift + b every time. That’s like yoga for my fingers.

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On my Mac that makes a proper apostrophe; not the weird one I referenced above.

Also, re paulakreuzer’s comment – how would one type a regular keyboard apostrophe that doesn’t get autocorrected?

Put it between back quotes (for code): ' (reply to this post to see my code).

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Nice. I’ve seen people use backquotes for apostrophes as well. That’s right out.

That’s not a quote, that’s a grave accent (the counterpart of the ´ this thread started about) :stuck_out_tongue:

I can tell you where that comes from. It is right there on the screen on the webpage where you are typing in the tracklist.
image

Look at “I don’t know” - there it is.

When I first learnt about the “different” apostrophe I had no way of typing it on a standard UK Windows keyboard.

Before getting hold of @jesus2099’s script, in some of my earliest attempts at using the correct apostrophe I would copy and paste that one from the don’t that was on screen. Based on the assumption that it would have been using the correct one. Which I’ve since learnt is incorrect.

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I went and checked, and the one on that screen seems to be the correct one: RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK’ (U+2019)

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@reosarevok are you sure? I have been told it is wrong before. I think it was @Zas who said it was on the TODO list to correct that part of the page. Clearly confused memory of mine… lolz

Have a look at this screenshot with the three side by side.

image

jesus2099 menu? I think you mean this:

:slight_smile:

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Thanks be to @jesus2099 - that’s the menu that makes this all soo much easier. :wink:

Though I am still confused by what it looks like on screen. I use the Menu to set the apostrophe on the track list page, but that apostrophe then looks different when I click on to the recordings page.

This is beyond confusing. Are the fonts being messed with on screen? Or some other changes?

This is what happens to me…

Can you see the subtle differences in the apostrophe’s? I am really confused why we type one thing from the menu, but by the next page that is then displayed in as a different looking apostrophe.

Is the track list entry using a different font on that page?

If you compare the I’s (that’s uppercase i’s), you’ll see that two different fonts are being used (“I don’t know” is using a font with serifs, the track names are not), which is likely why the ’s also look different, even if they’re the same glyph.

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Thanks. I had a feeling that was going on. I can now finally see the difference in the lower case “t”.

Please poke the GUI redesigners and help us out with making it more obvious. The only way I can be sure I have the right thing is to return to the little menu. Or carefully copy\paste from the recordings.

Not me for sure.

But correct typographic apostrophe is Unicode character 2019: https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2000.pdf

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For me (and not just with respect to MB), these are indispensable:

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Looks like jesus2099 fixed the weird apostrophe with this edit:

https://musicbrainz.org/edit/60361562

So my original example doesn’t quite work anymore.

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For those just joining, here is a link to keyboard shortcuts for mac, win, linux. https://typefacts.com/en/articles/keyboard-shortcuts

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On Windows, I use WinCompose for compose key functionality.

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This is a good source https://wiki.musicbrainz.org/User:Jacobbrett/English_Punctuation_Guide

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