English Language & Usage Asked on July 17, 2021
Assume that a certain word is capitalised, for example "Microsoft."
Say (for whatever reason, perhaps slang) you were going to shorten that certain word, using an apostrophe.
Today, I’d say we would write: ‘soft
(So for example: "I’ve worked at ‘soft for years…")
We would not keep the capitalisation through the contraction. (So, I’d say, we would not write "I’ve worked at ‘Soft for years…")
Question: what happened in 1850?
(Of course, the overall study of changes in capitalisation is a big topic; hopefully there’s an expert here.)
Still very little information on this, other than one (great) example found by Stoney. Anyone??
An instance of precisely this use is the common 18th- and 19th-century abbreviation by London financial traders of Exchange (referring to the Stock Exchange or the Royal Exchange) to ’Change , most often in the phrase on ’Change.
A quick troll through Google Books suggests that in the 18th century both the apostrophe and the capital were used or omitted freely with this short form; but in the 19th century both are standard, although not inevitable.
Answered by StoneyB on hiatus on July 17, 2021
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