Parse error: unexpected T_STRING (or similar)

If you are getting an error similar to:

"Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING in /var/www/myaccount/public_html/includes/languages/english/SOMETHING.php on line 28"

This typically means you have forgotten to put a \ (backslash) before a ' mark (single quote, apostrophe) in one of your define() statements in the language file reported.

Example:

define('TEXT_SOMETHING','This is something simple that\'s used as an example');

(notice the \' in the word that's).