I agree, they should be considered apostrophes, but I don't think Word knows the difference. If I could somehow get Word to know the difference between a closed-quote, open-quote, and apostrophe that would make editing so much easier. As it is now, I have to eye-ball most of the issues I've found. For example: I always check quotation marks that follow or precede a long dash or ellipses. Many times I've got to force the mark to hash the correct direction. Word can't tell sometimes if it's a close or open quotation. It all depends on the source text and the writing style.