Double quotes can be unambiguously autodetected by checking word boundaries, but separate single quotes are needed since apostrophe is the same character as a c

Double quotes can be unambiguously autodetected by checking word boundaries, but separate single quotes are needed since apostrophe is the same character as a close quote, but can appear at the start of a word. Note that most smart-quote-generating software does fail badly at this. Some common ambiguous pairs: ’bout - abbreviation for "about" ‘bout - starting a quote about a round of a fight ’cause - abbreviation for "because" ‘cause - starting a quote about a reason or ideal ’em - abbreviation for "them" ‘em - starting a quote about typographical units ’n’ - abbreviation for "and" ‘n’ - speaking of the letter itself