Unicode apostrophe standardization

MusicBrainz Style
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41

OMFG
I followed your link, there is talk about two different apostrophes (U+02BC and U+2019).
U+2019 is the same as Shift + Alt Gr + B on my keyboard. U+02BC is not even one of the 5 different apostrophes I found so far on my keyboard. :roll_eyes:
I get that different regions with different languages developed different signs for similar things in the past, but why do we still have 6 (or more?) versions left today?
It’s not like anyone can tell the difference between ʼ and ’ without a magnifying glass anyway.

Anyways, Shift + Alt Gr + B “right-single-quotation-mark” = U+2019 = ’ should be the “correct” one (for now) right?

42

Typography is complicated :slight_smile:

Yes. (But you can get the other one on Ubuntu by typing Shift-Ctrl-U 0 2 B C Return.)

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43

Oh it’s that easy, huh? :rofl:

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44

Fortunately you should almost never need to use the U+02BC.

“used as a tone marker in Bodo, Dogri, and Maithili; U+2019 is the preferred character for a punctuation apostrophe”

46

@IvanDobsky That does help me!! I’m messing with it now. Thank you.

47

Glad to help. This one first caught me out when I had two copies of the same album. One I had tagged years ago using EAC and freedb.org and then when I re-ripped it I tagged it with EAC and MusicBrainz. It caused quite a puzzle when I saw two folders side by side with the exact same name of “Easy Star All-Stars”. :smiley:

Only problem with that EAC settings page is I don’t think there are really enough boxes for all possible substitutions.

Meanwhile - the question to the rest of the thread stays open. How do I get these characters on a Windows UK Keyboard? Even it is the ALT+[NumPad] combination. I find it puzzling that everyone is either using Linux or copy and pasting.

48

I’m running Windows 7 & 10. In the U.S. I have to hold down the alt key and then press 0146 to get the curly ’. This was passed on to me from my Picard mentor in Europe.

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49

Thank You. Finally a sane response. Looks the same on this UK keyboard layout too.

Now can someone PLEASE add this to the help files so other noobs like me know how to put these daft things into place without being shouted at :smiley:

50

For work I, believe it or not, often have to differientate between dashes, en-dashes and em-dashes. I have been avoiding the topic of apostrophes for now…

But if it makes anyone feel better, my tip is to search for it in google, and copy and paste it in. It’s what the pros do :wink:

51

I prefer WinCompose …makes it pretty easy, and nicer if you have to keep other things on the clipboard.

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52

here is another page (in german) with shortcut keys for Windows and Unix. https://typefacts.com/artikel/tastaturkuerzel

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53

@Alfg, seems the link didn’t work :slight_smile:

54

How could that happen? Repaired!

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55

I used your tip about putting the ’ into EAC. It is saving time! Thanks…

56

Hello!

Maybe I’m off topic, but rather than trying to type the correct caracter on the keyboard, can’t the server side do the job?

I mean, is it not possible to automatically replace the ’ with a ’ while typing in the fields?

Also, maybe the language corrector could to the job? It’s very capable to capitalise correctly the name of a song, why not include a rule for apostrophes and other prefered caracters?

Just my two cents :wink:

57

I’ve wondered that as well, but I’m sure there’s a good reason. In the meantime, I use a “scriptlet” that someone (I don’t recall who) shared with me a long time ago. I have it on my bookmarks toolbar and simply click on it whenever I’m entering or editing a track list. Very handy. The code is:

javascript:(function(){$('.track-name').each(function(index,element){$(this).val(this.value.replace(/'/g,"\u2019")).change();})}());
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58
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59

The problem with automation is that different languages use different punctuation, especially with quotes (and apostrophes are hard to distinguish from single quotes). My advice is to make a singe text file on your desktop with all the special characters you need so you can copy and paste from there (and you don’t have to google for them all the time). It’s what I did until I bought a keyboard that supports almost all possible punctuation.

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60

The computer will not know if it should use a left quote, a right quote or even a prime (for inches and minutes).

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61

Here is a link to many typographic shortcuts for English/British keyboards (Windows & MAC OS) I have found it to be helpful. https://typefacts.com/en/articles/keyboard-shortcuts

My antivirus shows this to be a safe site but use your own to be sure. TTFN

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