The Word Nazi deeply apologizes for going on an unscheduled sabbatical without warning, but as we’ve mentioned before, the Word Nazi is not independently wealthy, and thus sadly isn’t able to devote himself full time to the improvement and preservation of the English language. (Or what little is left of it, at any rate.) The important thing is, we’re back.

Today’s screed, like so many others, comes after being driven nearly to the point of seizures by a tiny mark of punctuation: the apostrophotation mark, also known as the quotastrophe (rhymes with “catastrophe”). What, you say? You’ve never heard of such a thing? Well, you might never have heard of it but you’ve certainly seen it—almost everywhere, in fact, and with geometrically increasing frequency.

Before we proceed, it might be instructional to answer the burning question that’s surely top of mind for our readers at present: What the hell are you talking about? Allow me to elucidate. The quotastrophe appears when an apostrophe—the punctuation mark used in English to indicate the elision of one or more letters at the beginning, middle, or end of a word—is erroneously replaced by an open single quotation mark. A visual example is helpful:

   Livin’ in the ‘80s

The omitted (or elided) letter g at the end of “living” is replaced by the trusty apostrophe; so far, so good. But what’s that in front of the number 8? Yes! It’s the quotastrophe! Clearly this should be the same mark of punctuation as replaces the missing letter at the end of “living,” curling down and to the left, but because it’s at the beginning of a word (or number, in this case) our trusty word processor has incorrectly replaced the apostrophe with the open (or left) single quotation mark—i.e., the quotastrophe. The correct rendition should, of course, appear like this:

   Livin’ in the ’80s

Paradoxically, just twenty years ago the quotastrophe was as hard to find as a virgin at Bryn Mawr, except perhaps as an artifact of fat-fingered Linotype operators with hangovers—but now it’s rearing its ugly head on television, in print advertisements and emails, and on Web sites galore. Who’s to blame for this breeding explosion of almost leporine proportion?

Bill Gates.

Yes, you heard me—Bill Gates. Now, I know it’s fashionable to blame Microsoft for every woe facing the planet today, from computers that don’t work to shrinking glaciers and rising sea levels, and it’s true that many of these are unfairly ascribed to our friends in Redmond. But at the risk of being accused of piling on with the rest of the Microsoft bashin’istas, in this case at least, the blame does fall squarely at the well-shod feet of Mr. Gates. You see, a few years ago, Microsoft thoughtfully added an innocent checkbox to the Microsoft Word options panel: Replace "straight quotes" with “smart quotes.” As you can see, this has the effect of replacing those boring "typewriter style" straight quotation marks with the fancy “curly quotes” that one sees in books and other typeset documents. There is some intelligence behind this process, too. If you type a quotation mark just after a space, the computer assumes you are beginning a quote and uses the “open” or “left” quotation mark. And if you type it just after a letter (or comma or period), it assumes you’re ending the quote, and inserts a “close” or “right” quotation mark.

With the double quotation marks typically used in English, this doesn’t generally present a problem. Where things get a bit dicey is that the computer also does this replacement act for single quotation marks as well—you know, the ones that we use in English to show a “quote within a quote,” like so: “Whoever said you should ‘make hay while the sun shines’ never worked on a Texas farm,” Tom said balefully. This is because the computer keyboard uses the same key for the apostrophe ( ’ ) and for single quotation marks ( ‘ ’ ), with your word processor in the role of psychic referee, trying to guess which one you intended. But unlike single quotation marks, which should “curl” toward the word, the apostrophe should always “curl” down and to the left, regardless of whether it’s at the beginning, middle, or end of the word, viz:

   ’Tis a great time to be livin’ in Idaho, isn’t it?

Yet when you type an apostrophe at the beginning of a word, the computer erroneously assumes that you don’t want an apostrophe, you want an open single quotation mark, and instead of:

   I’d like to give her a bit of the old ’ows your father, I would.

you get:

   I’d like to give her a bit of the old ‘ows your father, I would.

Yikes. Now, in the ancient days of typewriters, the quotastrophe simply didn’t exist, as typewriters didn’t have a key to produce the open single quotation mark. No chance of confusion. But now, thanks to Microsoft, virtually every computer dutifully replaces the apostrophe with the left single quotation mark. There is a workaround, though, if you’re willing to be vigilant and hit a couple of extra keys. You can “override” the replacement in one of two ways in Microsoft Word:

(1) Immediately after typing the apostrophe (and getting an open single quotation mark), press the CTRL-Z keystroke combination. Presto! The offending open single quotation mark is replaced by the “straight apostrophe” ( ' ).

(2) But what if you really do want a “fancy” or “curly” apostrophe—you just want it curling the correct way? Simple. Immediately before typing the apostrophe, press the CTRL key and the apostrophe key simultaneously. Then type the apostrophe key again. Voilà! Your apostrophe curls down and to the left, just as a submissive mark of punctuation should!

So don’t let that computer keep pushing you around. Take control of your apostrophes, and make the quotastrophe—and Bill Gates—your bitch from now on.