em (them)

I'm writing a monologue where the character regularly uses 'em' instead of 'them'. Anyway, I was wondering how you all feel that's best done? Here are two of the sentences in question.

"And I don't blame'em."

"All of us in the know, call'em the . . ."

As you can see, I'm using apostrophes, but I'm not sure if that's correct.

 

From the OP I was ready to say that I would not read anything like that but now with your examples I see how that is actually how some folks talk so in context it would just acceptable. I would have written it without the apostrophe but I think that with it may be slightly better for print even if actual speech runs them directly together as one word eg callem.

 

I think your examples are fine. That’s how I talk and how I’d write it.

 

I think I'd write, "And I don't blame 'em." and "All of us in the know, call 'em the..."

I just grabbed the first book on my shelf that I know contains these kinds of abbreviations (the cowboy classic Trails Plowed Under, by Charles M Russell) and the book is filled with this kind of thing. The apostrophe denoting a dropped letter is always separated from the previous (or following) word by a space, at least in this book. It looks 'right' to me.

The dialogue does this in Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson, as well:

 

An apostrophe to indicate the missing letters is correct, as in:

"We've got 'em!"

"Go get 'er!"

 

I agree that the apostrophe is appropriate. Just add the space to your examples in the OP and you're good to go.

 

Yeah, that looks correct to me too. I suspected something was wrong during my reread, but I couldn't pin down what it was. Problem solved: I need a space before the apostrophe.

 

Like someone said just add a space.

"And I don't blame 'em."

"All of us in the know, call 'em the . . ."

 

Just remember that with contraction apostrophes, they only go one way around, that just means you always use the closing apostrophe. (Think single quote marks: you always use the end one to show a missing a word, not the first one! It's hard to show it in this font, but a common mistake with authors is that they put the contraction apostrophe the wrong way around.).

 

"And I don't blame 'em."

Or for US speech/dialect:

"And I don't blame 'am."

Or

"And I don't blame 'om."

 

S'called elision y'know.

 

He has it right in his example.