Plural possessives (Typographer extension)

[brycewray]

This issue occurs with the Typographer extension in Hugo — including the most recent release, 0.80.0 — if goldmark is the selected parser. It doesn’t occur if Blackfriday is the selected parser and “smart” punctuation is activated. I have complied with the @yuin requirement for Hugo users to bring up such issues in the Hugo repo before doing so here (https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/issues/8099).

Consider the following text in a Markdown file:

John's dog is named Sam. The Smiths' dog is named Rover.

Expected result: Each apostrophe should be a “smart”/curly apostrophe (’), given the default behavior of goldmark’s Typographer extension.

Actual result: Only the singular possessive (John's dog) has the “smart”/curly apostrophe, while the plural possessive (Smiths' dog) has the “dumb”/straight apostrophe (').

Thanks in advance for any help or consideration this issue may receive.

[thegreatsunra]

I can confirm that I'm seeing this issue when using plural possessives with the latest version of Hugo (currently 0.80.0).

In my testing, Hugo 0.74.3 (which uses Goldmark 1.1.31) "smartens" plural possessive primes as smart "curly" quotes as expected, but Hugo 0.75.0 (which adopted Goldmark 1.2.1) is where it stopped working.

Hugo 0.80.0 still uses Goldmark 1.2.1. Probably worth checking if this issue is resolved with Goldmark 1.3.1.

[brycewray]

I can confirm that I'm seeing this issue when using plural possessives with the latest version of Hugo (currently 0.80.0).

In my testing, Hugo 0.74.3 (which uses Goldmark 1.1.31) "smartens" plural possessive primes as smart "curly" quotes as expected, but Hugo 0.75.0 (which adopted Goldmark 1.2.1) is where it stopped working.

Hugo 0.80.0 still uses Goldmark 1.2.1. Probably worth checking if this issue is resolved with Goldmark 1.3.1.

Interesting info. Thanks, @thegreatsunra. https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/issues/8099

[thegreatsunra]

Hugo 0.80.0 still uses Goldmark 1.2.1. Probably worth checking if this issue is resolved with Goldmark 1.3.1.

I cloned Hugo locally, updated ./go.mod to reference github.com/yuin/goldmark v1.3.1 and built the hugo executable from that source.

I created a test page in Markdown with the content John's dog is named Sam. The Smiths' dog is named Rover. and confirmed that, even with Goldmark 1.3.1, the singular possessive is "smartened" while the plural possessive is not.

[moorereason]

The typography extension hasn't changed since v1.1.33 (3c3d448), so Hugo's use of v1.2.1 is likely irrelevant.

[thegreatsunra]

I cloned Hugo locally, updated ./go.mod to reference github.com/yuin/goldmark v1.3.1 and built the hugo executable from that source.

I've gone through each version of Goldmark this way, building and testing the hugo executable, and I'm pretty sure the plural possessive "no longer smartening" regression was introduced in Goldmark 1.1.32.

Goldmark 1.1.31 smartens plural possessives as expected. Goldmark 1.1.32 (and all subsequent versions) does not.

[thegreatsunra]

Ahh, yes: https://github.com/yuin/goldmark/compare/v1.1.31...v1.1.32

With Goldmark 1.1.32 the counter seems to throw things off:

# input
John's dog is named Sam. The Smiths' dog is named Rover.
# output (smartens John's)
John’s dog is named Sam. The Smiths' dog is named Rover.

# input
Johns dog is named Sam. The Smiths' dog is named Rover.
# output (smartens nothing)
Johns dog is named Sam. The Smiths' dog is named Rover.

# input
'Johns dog is named Sam. The Smiths' dog is named Rover.'
## output (smartens 'Johns and Smiths')
‘Johns dog is named Sam. The Smiths’ dog is named Rover.'

# input
'John's dog is named Sam. The Smiths' dog is named Rover.'
## output (smartens 'John's and Smiths')
‘John’s dog is named Sam. The Smiths’ dog is named Rover.'

[yuin]

In Japan, there aren't many opportunities to write English. Honestly say, I'm not familiar with English. I welcome PR from native English writers.

[brycewray]

In Japan, there aren't many opportunities to write English. Honestly say, I'm not familiar with English. I welcome PR from native English writers.

@yuin, great to hear! I am not able to code for a PR but I will create a list of similar typographer issues so whoever can code for a PR can use it as a guideline. Maybe the same code can fix them all.

Edit: Decided the list would be better as an actual site showing the issues, so have put up https://gm-typographer.vercel.app/ as a minimal example.

[brycewray]

FWIW, Hugo 0.81.0 was just released, which updates the Goldmark version to 1.1.32; so I guess it'll be a while before this gets resolved.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[brycewray]

To my knowledge, the problem remains.

[brycewray]

Hugo 0.82.0 is out. Since the release notes don't mention Goldmark at all, presumably it's still using 1.1.32. Just FYI.

[brycewray]

Hugo 0.83.1 is out with a bug fix for 0.83.0, which was released the day before. The release notes for 0.83.0 say it now uses Goldmark 1.35; this issue still persists (see https://gm-typographer.vercel.app/).

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[skyfaller]

Can we please get rid of the stale bot? I'm fine with commenting to prevent the issue from going stale, but it seems like unnecessary noise if there has been no change in the situation.

For the record, I am still experiencing this issue in Hugo v0.83.1. Here's my (possibly inferior) version of the test page: https://www.maximumethics.dev/blog/2021/03/smart-quotes/

[brycewray]

Issue is still present in Hugo 0.84.0, which uses Goldmark 1.3.8.

[brycewray]

Issue is still present in Hugo 0.85.0, which uses Goldmark 1.3.9.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[skyfaller]

This issue is still present in Hugo 0.87.0, which uses Goldmark v1.4.0.

I still hate stale bot.

[brycewray]

@skyfaller at this point, I am convinced this is not going to be resolved. What complicates that is the fact that Hugo 0.87.0 deprecated Blackfriday so it's pretty much Goldmark or nothing going forward.

[skyfaller]

I posted a plea for help on the Hugo forum, maybe that will attract someone with the necessary coding chops: https://discourse.gohugo.io/t/smart-quotes-do-not-work-properly-in-hugo-with-goldmark/34266

[natemoo-re]

👋🏻 Hey folks! I'm maintaining a WASM wrapper of Goldmark for Deno (https://deno.land/x/goldmark). I got some feedback from @brycewray that this was a blocker, so I'm going to try to take a crack at a PR!

[brycewray]

Still present in Hugo 0.89.0, which uses Goldmark 1.4.2 (https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/tag/v0.89.0).

[brycewray]

Still present in Hugo 0.89.3, which uses Goldmark 1.4.3.

Updated demo.

[brycewray]

@yuin Thank you so much for pinning this, removing the "Stale" label, and setting a "Help wanted" label!

[brycewray]

Hugo 0.93.0 with goldmark 1.4.7 definitely fixed all issues I’d previously reported; see the newly updated version of my test site. Outstanding!

[arif254]

I use Hugo and still get straight quotes.. Segoe UI is to blame.

[brycewray]

I use Hugo and still get straight quotes.. Segoe UI is to blame.

That's odd. That font definitely has all the correct characters.