Titles used as possessives in quote marks

[frogboxer]

I found an answer to this in The Handbook of Good English by Edward Johnson.

Titles used as possessives
The apostrophe and s can follow the closing quotation mark, as is logical.

1. He knew all of “A Hard Day’s Night” 's lyrics.
2. He knew all of “A Hard Day’s Night” ’s lyrics.

My question is: Would you use curly quotes around “A Hard Day’s Night” and a single straight quote ( ' ) or a single curly quote ( ’ ) to denote the possessive—that is, the apostrophe + s preceding the word lyrics? 1 or 2 above in terms of typography? Thanks.

 

[5jj]

1. He knew all of “A Hard Day’s Night” 's lyrics.

That's a very clunky sentence. We'd be far more likely to say, "He knew all the words/lyrics of "A Hard Day's Night".

My question is: Would you use curly quotes around “A Hard Day’s Night” and a single straight quote ( ' ) or a single curly quote ( ’ ) to denote the possessive—that is, the apostrophe + s preceding the word lyrics? 1 or 2 above in terms of typography? Thanks.

Most of us are at the mercy of our keyboards. If I put something inside quotation marks "like this", they come out like that, "...". If I use single quotation marks 'like this', they come out like that, '...'. If I use apostrophes, they appear like this: boy's, boys'.

 

[frogboxer]

“I liked ‘Hey Jude’s’ lyrics.”

I say that without a recast, this is technically correct regarding punctuation. Do you agree?

• Jonathan said, “I liked ‘Hey Jude’s’ lyrics.”

Thank you.

I have merged this post with your thread on a very similar topis. It could be confusing to have two such threads going on at the same time. 5jj

 

[frogboxer]

Thanks, 5jj. But if this were, hypothetically, a transcription, would you concur with the punctuation in the 2nd example?

 

[Raymott]

Thanks, 5jj. But if this were, hypothetically, a transcription, would you concur with the punctuation in the 2nd example?

If I absolutely had to write it this way, I'd write, "Hard Days Night's". I wasn't aware that there were two types of apostrophe, though I recognise that different people use whatever is on their keyboard, including `.

 

[frogboxer]

Thank you, Raymott.

 

[Raymott]

Thank you, Raymott.

Mind you I'm not saying that is right, since your book says otherwise. But I could not bring myself to using the form that your book suggests, and I doubt whether all but the most pedantic markers would object to "Hard Days Night's". Others might not agree.