Comment 6 for bug 36227

Same 12.04 LTS, I looked over the source code and found that sections of "gedit-spell-checker" reference that it was modified from "gtkspell 2.0.2".
At gtkspell.sourceforge.net/ChangeLog references in a later version:

"version 2.0.11 (2005-05-27):
 * Re-enable apostrophe word-breaking workarounds (GNOME bug #97545).
 * Additional translations (see po/ChangeLog)."

This seems that they have found a fix for gtkspell and may help to solve the problem in "gedit-spell-checker"

The relevent part of the code is:
<code>

static gboolean
gtkspell_text_iter_forward_word_end(GtkTextIter *i) {
 GtkTextIter iter;

/* heuristic:
 * if we're on an singlequote/apostrophe and
 * if the next letter is alphanumeric,
 * this is an apostrophe. */

 if (!gtk_text_iter_forward_word_end(i))
  return FALSE;

 if (gtk_text_iter_get_char(i) != '\'')
  return TRUE;

 iter = *i;
 if (gtk_text_iter_forward_char(&iter)) {
  if (g_unichar_isalpha(gtk_text_iter_get_char(&iter))) {
   return (gtk_text_iter_forward_word_end(i));
  }
 }

 return TRUE;
}

</code>

Which it looks like someone has already adapted into a workaround here https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131576

Looks like It may have been abandoned, since the fix existed since 2004, and the bug since around 2002, https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=97545

10 years later...