quote:

1. The learned printeres uses to symboliz apostrophus and hyphen as wel as a, b, c.

2. Apostrophus is the ejecting of a letter or a syllab out of one word or out betuene tuae, and is alwayes marked above the lyne, as it wer a comma, thus ’.

3. Out of one word the apostrophus is most usual in poesie; as Ps. 73, v. 3, for quhen I sau such foolish men, I grug’d, and did disdain; and v. 19, They are destroy’d, dispatch’d, consum’d.

4. Betuene tuae wordes we abate either from the end of the former or the beginning of the later.

5. We abate from the end of the former quhen it endes in a voual and the next beginnes at a voual; as, th’ ingrate; th’ one parte; I s’ it, for I see it.

6. In abating from the word following, we, in the north, use a mervelouse libertie; as, he’s a wyse man, for he is a wyse man; I’l meet with him, for I wil meet with him; a ship ’l of fooles, for a ship ful of fooles; and this we use in our common language. And quhilk is stranger, we manie tymes cut of the end of the word; as, he’s tel the, for he sal tel the.

7. This for apostrophus. Hyphen is, as it wer, a band uniting whol wordes joined in composition; as, a hand-maed, a heard-man, tongue-tyed, out-rage, foer-warned, mis-reported, fals-deemed.

[From Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue; A Treates, noe shorter then necessarie, for the Schooles, Be Alexander Hume, (ca.1617) chapter 10.]