Use of ' to indicate missing letters/text

Question

You can write

this ol' man 'ere

when you mean

this old man here

But can the ' be used to indicate whole missing sentence parts?

For example:

'been a pleasure!

for

It's been a pleasure!

Answer 1

The apostrophe is used to show a contraction. For example, "don't" is really "do not". However as Purdue OWL writes, they are only for the omission of letters within a short phrase. Do not use them for the exclusion of entire words; that is not a function of an apostrophe.

Answer 2

I would say no...the apostrophe is generally being used to indicate a missing sound or letter, not an entire word. Strictly speaking:

Been a pleasure!

Is not grammatically correct, but it would be fine for dialog, and it's perfectly clear what the speaker means. If anything, an apostrophe will only muddy the waters.

Answer 3

I don't think so. Apostrophe does not let you abbreviate the words - it indicates that the speaker dropped the sound or two while talking. When part of the sentence was omitted, it is not indicated in any way. In your example Been a pleasure would be a correct way to write it down.

Answer 4

It all depends. In representing speech it might well be effective to write:

'Spose so.