Apostrophe cannot stay put, always replaced for a left single quotation mark.

[ABTOP]

I am trying to set the simplest text string — 's, s'
That's it. The mark is the apostrophe both times. WordPress is consistently changes this to opening and closing single quotation marks. I am not quoting anybody, I am giving examples of how possessiveness is indicated in English.

Why can't I have MY content the way I write it?

[tristangemus]

Hi there,

I'm running a clean install of 4.7.2 on the Twenty Seventeen theme and I am able to paste your exact text in the editor and display it on the front end.

Which version of Wordpress are you using? And which theme? If you have a local or dev environment, try disabling some plugins and switching to a bundled Wordpress theme such as Twenty Seventeen.

(Screenshots pending)

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to tristangemus:

I'm running a clean install of 4.7.2 on the Twenty Seventeen theme and I am able to paste your exact text in the editor and display it on the front end.

In the screenshots, the apostrophes are converted to ​single quotes, exactly as described. This is done by the built-in ​wptexturize() function, with no plugins involved.

Replying to ABTOP:

Why can't I have MY content the way I write it?

There's a ​number of plugins to disable wptexturize() per post or globally.

[tristangemus]

My apologies, I misread the initial ticket. Disregard my post above, thanks @SergeyBiryukov

[gitlost]

Using Unicode U+2019 apostrophes ’s, s’ rather than ambiguous ASCII ones is probably the easiest solution.

[ABTOP]

@SergeyBiryukov, thank you, you are most helpful. But think for a second about the value of a feature of it takes a plugin to get rid of it. Eh?

@tristangemus, if you bump up the font size, you'd see better that it's a different squiggle.

@gitlost, U+2019 is RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK. Sure, it looks similar. Yes, it can be a workaround.

The bigger question remains, however: why am I being forced to work around WordPress's unjustifiable ambition to alter my content?

User's content must be off limits for any alteration. You can't tell people "This is the best Web publishing platform which will empower you to get your ideas out (after we RegEx the hell out of it)."

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to ABTOP:

But think for a second about the value of a feature of it takes a plugin to get rid of it. Eh?

I'd prefer having correct typography out of the box (which is what wptexturize() generally does, except for a few edge cases), and installing a plugin to work around those edge cases, if needed.

If wptexturize() was disabled by default, having to install a plugin on all of my sites just to format typographical symbols correctly seems less than ideal. Of course, one could always enter the correct quotes, dashes, etc. manually, but it requires a strong habit and distracts from actual writing.

[ABTOP]

Replying to SergeyBiryukov:
Your convenience is my inconvenience. There is plenty of room in the "Writing" settings for an "off" switch for wptexturize().

As it stands, I still consider this a bug: there is no reason to treat two letters an a comma as any sort of a quote. You want fancier typography? Get fancier with RegEx!