Why shouldn't ' be used to escape single quotes?

Diving into quote escapement

HTML provides a set of character references to objectify special characters or those that are elusive in HTML representation. Safer choices are numeric entities - ' for single quotes (apostrophe) and " for double quotes.

Picking the appropriate quote entity

While HTML5 deems ' as valid, retaining legacy support (HTML 4 and XHTML) calls for named entities ‘ and ’ for left and right single curved quotes respectively. Double quotes can enjoy “ and ”.

Coding semantically with quotes

For semantic correctness, <q> tags are used to symbolize short quotations which by default, will get rendered with suitable quotation marks by browsers.

Escaping quotes in older browsers

A noteworthy kiey point to remember is to confirm the compatibility of various escape sequences. It's possible some ancient browsers will not recognize ', hence ' assures maximum compatibility.

Styling quotes with CSS

Leverage the power of CSS to handle quotation marks in your content - the quotes property can be your go-to tool for multilingual typesetting of quotations with varying quotation marks.

q {
  quotes: "‘" "’" "“" "“";
}
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Encoding curly single quotes

There are times when you need to embed curly single quotes into your HTML. Turn to ‘ for left curly single quotes or opening apostrophes and ’ for right curly single quotes or closing apostrophes.

XML vs HTML: their relation

Named character references significantly impact XML applications. Here, ' plays a notable role, but carries a different understanding in HTML 4. Always stay updated with the relevant specification (HTML vs XML) to avoid unusual outcomes.

Compatibility caution with XHTML

If XHTML is a part of your project, take note of Wikipedia's caution to abstain from using '. As XHTML is an application of XML, but often served with MIME type text/html, potential confusion or compatibility issues may arise.