Read perlunicode. You can use names for unicode characters and pick them out of a list to get the substitutions you want. The list also has the numeric codes if you prefer to do it that way. 

use charnames ":full";

$string =~ s{ 
              \N{LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK} | \N{RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATI
+ON MARK} 
            }
            {
              \N{APOSTROPHE} 
            }xg;

[download]

You may also get some mileage out of these properties, but the caveat from perlunicode would make me a bit nervous.

    Pi          InitialPunctuation
                (may behave like Ps or Pe depending on usage)
    Pf          FinalPunctuation
                (may behave like Ps or Pe depending on usage)

[download]

(And yes, a module to do this translation automatically would be very nice!)

-xdg

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In reply to Re: Reg Ex to strip MS smart quotes by xdg
in thread Reg Ex to strip MS smart quotes by freddo411

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