No it isn’t. It isn’t an apostrophe; it’s a left single quote, although some modern printers mistakenly suppose it to be an apostrophe, and substitute one. And it isn’t an elision; it’s meant as a substitute glyph for a superscript c. (I confess that, not being from Scotland, I thought it to be an elision for over fifty years, but when I was preparing a transcription of William Dunlap’s “André: a Tragedy in Five Acts” [New York, 1798], in which a character named “M‘Donald” plays a major role, I looked into the matter, and was surprised to learn the truth.)
> On Jan 4, 2017, at 3:12 AM, Philippe Verdy <[email protected]> wrote: > > This is the traditional use of the apostrophe to be used to marc an elision > at end of words. Nothing new. > > 2017-01-04 6:36 GMT+01:00 John W Kennedy <[email protected]>: >> >> > On Jan 3, 2017, at 10:20 PM, Asmus Freytag <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > On 1/3/2017 4:24 PM, Marcel Schneider wrote: >> >> On Tue, 3 Jan 2017 09:31:42 +0100, Christoph Päper wrote: >> >> >> >>>> Among the possibilities, you include Unicode subscripts. >> >>> Just for the sake of completeness. >> >> This tends to conclude that preformatted subscripts are really an option >> >> here. >> > >> > Not so. You yourself quote this statement: >> > >> > | Superscript modifier letters are intended for cases where the letters >> > carry >> > | a specific meaning, as in phonetic transcription systems, and are not >> > | a substitute for generic styling mechanisms for superscripting of text, >> > | as for footnotes, mathematical and chemical expressions, and the like. >> > >> > It is clear that the uses that you advocate go against this intent. >> > >> > Therefore, your conclusion that this is "an option" is nothing more than a >> > very personal >> > opinion on your part (and one that many people here would consider >> > misguided if >> > presented as general recommendation). >> > >> > A./ >> >> As long as this is being discussed, what about the historic practice of >> using M‘ (nowadays often seen as M’ instead) in Scottish names—e.g., >> M‘Donald—as a typographic substitute for M(superscript c)? >> >> -- >> John W Kennedy >> Having switched to a Mac in disgust at Microsoft's combination of >> incompetence and criminality. >> >> >> >> >
