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iPad Apostrophes - The Problem and the Solution

Recent verisons of ios on iPads use a curly apostrophe, rather than a straight apostrophe, by default. Other computer keyboards use a straight apostrophe.

There is much debate online about which is correct, but for us, this means that if you are using an iPad to work on the exercises on this website, you may find that answers involving an apostrophe (e.g. à l'hôtel) will be rejected, even though they are right. This is because the system does not recognise the apostrophe.

On all recently designed exercises, I have included alternative answers which will accept both types of apostrophe - à l’hôtel as well as à l'hôtel.

This doesn't solve the problem on the rest of the site, and changing all exercises to accept both apostrophes would literally take months.

There is, however, an alternative SOLUTION:

On your iPad, go to SETTINGS. On the left, click GENERAL. On the right, click KEYBOARDS. In the list under KEYBOARDS, turn off SMART PUNCTUATION. This will stop the iPad using curly apostrophes, and instead it will use industry standard straight apostrophes.

Problem solved.


Site concept, design and management by Andrew Balaam, for Languages Online Ltd. Additional materials by Francisco Villatoro, Ruth Smith and Jacky Tidbury.