stoutfellow: Joker (Joker)
[personal profile] stoutfellow
I'm currently reading Weber's Mission of Honor, and ran across a strange typographical issue. In that book, the disreputable corporation Manpower is emerging as the Big Bad. Two characters have just come to the realization that Manpower is actually a front for a much more powerful and dangerous entity, and so are referring to it using horror quotes: 'Manpower' - or, rather, their speech is being represented that way. At any rate, a point comes where one character uses the name in a possessive. Normally, that would just be "Manpower's" - but if you're using horror quotes, how can you write that? Weber opts for writing " 'Manpower's' ". (The double quotes are mine; what he actually wrote lies between.)

I find that unsatisfactory, but how else would you write it? " 'Manpower''s "? (That's two single quotes/apostrophes before the "s".) (Of course, if apostrophes and single quotes were regularly and clearly distinguished, the problem might be more tractable....)

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