When I read my friend Virginia DeBolt’s tweet over the weekend, reporting issues adding a tag with an apostrophe to her WordPress site, I was curious.
Hey #WordPress folks – I can’t get a tag with an apostrophe to be accepted unless I use the HMTL code for an apostrophe in the tag. Why is that happening? @wordpressdotcom
— Virginia DeBolt (@vdebolt) October 6, 2019
I hadn’t encountered that issue before, and I was wondering what caused it.
Thankfully, Virginia quickly found a workaround for her tag issue. She added the HTML code for an apostrophe.
But she commented (and I agreed with her on Twitter) that doesn’t resolve the issue for WordPress users who don’t know HTML.
If you put a name like Jenny O’Hara in your tag list in WP it just spits it back out. You need to replace the apostrophe with HTML, which probably very few WordPress users have a clue how to do. Once you have it there, it displays properly in the browser. https://t.co/MyYdiYJ6F3
— Virginia DeBolt (@vdebolt) October 6, 2019
I wanted to delve into the issue and find out if there was another solution.
A method that anyone could use, without knowing HTML code.
Turns out there is. Read on to learn what I discovered.
Tags with Single Apostrophes Affects WordPress Sites using the Block Editor
When I attempted to duplicate the issue, I had no luck.
And then I learned why. Virginia was using the Block Editor to add tags to her post.
I was using the Classic Editor plugin on a self-hosted WordPress site, which had no issues displaying a tag with a single apostrophe.
However, when I tested adding a tag with an apostrophe on a self-hosted WordPress site using the new Block Editor, the problem appeared.
And the same issue occurred on WordPress.com sites using the Block Editor.
The tag was stripped out by WordPress.
What a pain!
From my testing, I believe this is a Block Editor issue. It’s not happening in the Classic Editor on the sites I tested.
I decided to do more testing to discover how to add the tag in the Block Editor, without having to know HTML.
Found it!
How to Add Single Apostrophe Tag in the Block Editor
Like many tasks in WordPress, there’s more than one way to add a tag to a post.
The option that worked for me was to visit Dashboard > Posts and select Quick Edit for the post.
In Quick Edit, you have the option to add tags or make other minor changes to a post.
I added the single apostrophe tag to the post, saved the post, and the tag displayed as I expected.
Turns out other people have reported issues with single apostrophe tags in Gutenberg.
Hopefully it will be tested and resolved soon.
Wrapping Up
Adding a tag with a single apostrophe isn’t that uncommon for WordPress posts, so when it doesn’t work, that’s troublesome.
Thankfully there are a couple workarounds you can use to resolve the issue. If you know HTML, you can add the code for a single apostrophe to your tag.
Or visit Dashboard > Posts, select Quick Edit for your post, and add the single apostrophe tag.
Have you encountered this issue with a single apostrophe tag? Found another solution that works? Share what you learned in the comments.
Thank you for figuring out a workaround for this. It’s a complete interruption of workflow, but it fixes the problem!
You didn’t mention the character code for an apostrophe, but it’s
When I got so frustrated and started venting on Twitter about this recurring problem I was trying to enter Ja’Siah Young as a tag. I ended up having to enter Ja'Siah Young instead.
I hope WordPress fixes this, because it’s annoying no matter how you choose to handle it.
Oops. I see the character code got converted to an apostrophe, so my entire comment doesn’t make sense.
Hi Virginia,
My mistake for not including the character code in my post, thank you for adding it in your comment. HTML code is stripped out in the comments, but I added some pre and code tags so your character code for the apostrophe would display.