Interestingly, one reported instance of this within a richtext control suggested that if you double-click the word fast enough, it will work - and, strangely, that's true. It selects the white-space following the apostrophe and the apostrophe itself first, but indeed, if you double-click like a madman, that selection will double-back and include the word itself. Treble-clicking gets you the line itself, but that's a different matter.

So - um - (and this wins a prize for strangest suggestion) just double-click faster.