{"id":9684,"date":"2020-12-08T10:45:13","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T10:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/?p=9684"},"modified":"2023-04-13T22:33:47","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T22:33:47","slug":"apostrophes-in-e-mail-addresses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/apostrophes-in-e-mail-addresses\/","title":{"rendered":"Apostrophes in E-mail Addresses: The Definitive Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>img#mv-trellis-img-1::before{padding-top:150%; }img#mv-trellis-img-1{display:block;}<\/style><p>There&rsquo;s an old idiom that goes &ldquo;In this word, nothing is certain except death and taxes.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>In modern life, we can probably update the saying to read as follows: &ldquo;In this world, nothing is certain except death, taxes and e-mail.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Anyone in school, with a job or with family members located elsewhere is probably nodding along.<\/p>\n<p>The prevalence of e-mails also means it&rsquo;s important to have regulations and standards in place to govern the rules of their creation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Can you include an apostrophe in an e-mail address?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Yes, you can indeed include an apostrophe or single quote in your e-mail address. You can even include other characters, like the %, the @ sign and even blank spaces. However, e-mail providers don&rsquo;t always recognize nonalphanumeric characters, so proceed with caution. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Additionally, having too many nonstandard characters will confuse other people. For these reasons, it&rsquo;s best to avoid apostrophes and other nonalphanumeric characters in your e-mail address unless you have a very good reason to include them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>Who decides how to write e-mail addresses?<\/h2>\n<p>What if I told you there was a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/stare-into-the-abyss\/\">shadowy<\/a><\/strong> group tasked with managing what we connect to on the Internet and how we can access it?<\/p>\n<p>No, I&rsquo;m not talking about the illuminati or some kind of deep state. I&rsquo;m talking about the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an organization of network engineers with expertise in all things Internet.<\/p>\n<p>And while IETF is not really a shadowy organization, its members <em>are<\/em> the ones who develop standards and describe best practices for Internet technologies.<\/p>\n<p>One of those standards, defined in <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/tools.ietf.org\/html\/rfc3696#section-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RFC 3696<\/a><\/strong>, describes valid syntax for common features of the Internet. Included in that standard is a description of valid characters in the first part of an e-mail address.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Apostrophes in e-mail addresses<\/h2>\n<p>According to RFC 3696, <em>any<\/em> ASCII character (including @, %, # and <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/dollar-sign-before-or-after-number\/\" title=\"$\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">$<\/a>) can be part of your e-mail address based on this standard.<\/p>\n<p>To be exact, what this standard <em>actually<\/em> says is that e-mail addresses with these characters &ldquo;should not be rejected in filtering routines,&rdquo; suggesting instead that they are &ldquo;passed to the e-mail system for evaluation by the destination host.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Anyone familiar with running a web server can already see where this is going, but before we get into the reasons why e-mail providers might decide to get rid of any nonalphanumeric e-mail addresses, let&rsquo;s look more at how RFC 3696 deals with apostrophes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>RFC 3696 and apostrophes<\/h3>\n<p>The &lsquo; is sometimes called a &ldquo;single quote&rdquo; in most technical documents.<\/p>\n<p>That makes sense, because while it serves as an apostrophe when applied to actual words, this character can also appear in other contexts.<\/p>\n<p>As noted, RFC 3696 &mdash; the document which formally defines what characters are allowed in e-mail addresses &mdash; does permit the use of apostrophes.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-before-or-after-however\/\">However<\/a><\/strong>, some e-mail providers may choose to filter them out by default or otherwise do strange things with e-mails sent from these addresses.<\/p>\n<p><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9700\" src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1.jpg\" alt=\"Apostrophes in E-Mail Addresses Updated\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1.jpg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-735x1103.jpg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-223x335.jpg 223w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-231x347.jpg 231w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-347x520.jpg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-427x640.jpg 427w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-512x768.jpg 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1.jpg\"><\/noscript><img loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9700 eager-load\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201000%201500'%3E%3Crect%20width='1000'%20height='1500'%20style='fill:%23e3e3e3'\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" alt=\"Apostrophes in E-Mail Addresses Updated\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1500\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1.jpg\" id=\"mv-trellis-img-1\" data-src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1.jpg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1.jpg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-735x1103.jpg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-223x335.jpg 223w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-231x347.jpg 231w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-347x520.jpg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-427x640.jpg 427w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Apostrophes-in-E-Mail-Addresses-Updated-1-512x768.jpg 512w\" data-svg=\"1\" data-trellis-processed=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Apostrophes and other disasters<\/h3>\n<p>Unfortunately for all you apostrophe-loving e-mail users, there are significant risks involved in allowing people to use special characters in e-mail addresses.<\/p>\n<p>The apostrophe is a particular risk, as it is often used in programming languages to quote strings.<\/p>\n<p>That is, programming languages use the &lsquo; character to set code that does things apart from words, e-mail addresses <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-after-and\/\">and<\/a><\/strong> other bits of text.<\/p>\n<p>If an apostrophe shows up unexpectedly halfway through a string such as an e-mail address, it can lead to the program losing its place and acting in unexpected ways.<\/p>\n<p>Attackers can even exploit this problem to insert malicious code, enabling them to delete people&rsquo;s records or even make copies of them for their own nefarious purposes.<\/p>\n<p>For that reason, programmers and services will almost always make sure to check for special characters and turn them into text in some way.<\/p>\n<p>Not to get too technical, but the name for this in programming lingo is &ldquo;sanitizing your input.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>If you don&rsquo;t sanitize input in programs involving some kind of database (and e-mail counts!) some <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/xkcd.com\/327\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pretty bad stuff can happen<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Any programmer with experience, and certainly any major e-mail system, will know this already.<\/p>\n<p>That means that most major e-mail servers should already have processes in place to make sure apostrophes won&rsquo;t break stuff.<\/p>\n<p>However, it also means that the <em>potential<\/em> for risk is big enough that e-mail providers just aren&rsquo;t willing to risk it.<\/p>\n<p>Alternatively, some e-mail providers use nonalphanumeric characters to do things when receiving e-mails, such as assuming that something in curly brackets or single quotes in an e-mail address is supposed to filter it or move it to a specific folder.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>What other characters can you include in e-mail addresses?<\/h2>\n<p>Here is the list, directly from RFC 3696:<br>\n<strong>! # $ % &amp; &lsquo; * + &ndash; \/ = ? ^ _ ` . { | } ~<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>However, because of the security concerns mentioned above, some characters must be &ldquo;quoted,&rdquo; a coding term meaning set off from the rest of the plain text of the code or address in some way.<\/p>\n<p>There are two ways to quote special characters in e-mail addresses:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Place a backslash in front of them<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Place the entire address in double quotes<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The characters that need to be quoted are:<br>\n<strong>@ \\ &rdquo; , [ ]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s worth noting that <em>you<\/em> don&rsquo;t need to worry about what quoting means, or how to do it. It&rsquo;s something that should happen automatically in the e-mail system you use.<\/p>\n<p>Again, e-mail systems are supposed to just pass all these characters along without doing anything.<\/p>\n<p>But that doesn&rsquo;t mean your own provider, or the one you&rsquo;re sending e-mails to, won&rsquo;t do something unusual with apostrophes in e-mail addresses when they get there.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Is it actually a good idea to include an apostrophe in your e-mail address?<\/h2>\n<p>As we&rsquo;ve seen above, according to RFC 3696 the following would be a valid e-mail address: &ldquo;A@3# \/%\\.@@.@ &lsquo;LOL!&rsquo; @gmail.com&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Is that <em>a good idea<\/em>? Obviously, it&rsquo;s not. How would you ever tell someone your e-mail address, let alone expect them to remember it? For that matter, you&rsquo;d probably be hard put to remember it yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, that&rsquo;s an extreme example. A single apostrophe or some other nonalphanumeric character is hardly going to make your e-mail hard to remember.<\/p>\n<p>In short, for the same reason that <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/xkcd.com\/936\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">passwords made up of phrases<\/a><\/strong> are easier for people to memorize, it&rsquo;s better to stick to as many expected characters as you can.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, it&rsquo;s important to remember that some combinations of characters like \/ and \\ can lead to unexpected behavior in some programming languages, which might cause problems not only for you but for the entire service.<\/p>\n<p>Because of this, e-mail providers and web servers don&rsquo;t always accept e-mail addresses with apostrophes as valid and may automatically direct them to spam or even fail to deliver them at all.<\/p>\n<p>To sum things up, while you can use an apostrophe in your e-mail address, it can lead to problems. In most, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/most-if-not-all-punctuation-commas\/\">if not all<\/a>,<\/strong> cases, you&rsquo;re better off creating an e-mail address that doesn&rsquo;t have an apostrophe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&rsquo;s an old idiom that goes &ldquo;In this word, nothing is certain except death and taxes.&rdquo; In modern life, we can probably update the saying to read as follows: &ldquo;In this world, nothing is certain except death, taxes and e-mail.&rdquo; Anyone in school, with a job or with family members located elsewhere is probably nodding &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9693,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable-in-feed":false,"article-schema-type":"Article","disable-critical-css":false,"_convertkit_action_broadcast_export":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1116],"tags":[240,239],"class_list":["post-9684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","tag-apostrophes","tag-apostrophes-in-e-mail-addresses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9684"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25107,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9684\/revisions\/25107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}