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In the Dickensian era, was a capital letter preserved through apostrophe contractions?

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??

One Answer

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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