Reply To: Smart Quotes Not So Smart

Minion Pro does not have primes; at least the version I have installed does not. I confess that I have used the Greek Numeral Sign (x0374), which Minion does have, in place of a single prime from time to time. You may have to fiddle with the placement a bit. You probably don’t want to switch typefaces at this point, but Arno Pro is a nice replacement for Minion and has a much greater complement of glyphs, including primes, and the quotation marks are a little more delicate.

I would recommend using the single quotation mark in possessives and contractions, especially if the alternative is x0027. I agree, certainly wrong to mark inches.