It’s jack-o’-lantern season, so I thought, Why not ruin it with something dull?
See that apostrophe in jack-o’-lantern? Have you ever noticed that sometimes apostrophes in Microsoft Word are straight (‘) but other times they’re curly (’)? That’s because even if the right setting is turned on, the program can still easily get confused and insert a straight apostrophe. Before you know it you’ve got a manuscript with straight apostrophes and curly apostrophes all mingling together, and we can’t have that. Straight apostrophes are fine for use in browsers, but the fact is that in the publishing world it’s generally preferable to use curly apostrophes.
As an editor, one of the first things I always do is globally search a manuscript for any straight apostrophes and replace them with curly ones. An easy way to remember which is correct is that an apostrophe should simply look like a raised comma.
This is just one example of the kinds of things I check for while working. If you’re interested in potentially working together, I’d be happy to do a free sample edit for you. Please feel free to reach out to me.
Happy JACK-O’-LANTERNING
Timothy