Question

is it at all possible to replace the ' in the postbody variable with ' without actually editing the postbody variable contents

var postbody = '<div class="postbody">this is tom's and bill's post</div>';
var postid = $('#post-content');
postid.append(postbody);​

http://jsfiddle.net/3nVrZ/

Answer 1

Create an element and set its text, then you don’t have to encode it:

var post = $('<div/>', { 'class': 'postbody' });
post.text("this is tom's and bill's post");
$('#post-content').append(post);​