5 ms·

Which makes no sense IMHO is to use “” instead of "". But it could be my OCD also.

by trzeci 5y ago

Y_Y 5y ago
It's all fun and games until you try to copy the "66 and 99"-style quotes from one place to another, or your ”helpful“ text editor automagically makes a mess of them. It's a pity no good ``asymmetric'' style ever really took off in English. I'm particularly fond of the French «chevrons», and relatedly, ¡Spanish exclamations! ⸘Why has not yet the opening interrobang received similarly wide adoption‽
- iggldiggl 5y ago
  I don't really like the dedicated interrobang character, because it loses the distinction between ?! and !?, which is probably rather subtle, but to my mind definitively there.
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    I would argue that those two choices remain available to you, and that you can reach even finer levels of subtlety by using (or conspicuously not using) the interrobang. (Just don't use "??!" because that's a trigraph for "|".)
  - joombaga 5y ago
    How would you define "?!" vs "!?" ? I agree they're different. To me the "greater" feeling comes second. "?!" is more surprising, while "!?" is more confusing. With "‽" the feelings are equal.
    - willhinsa 5y ago
      I agree with you on ‽, but differ with you on the "!?" and "?!" -- for me, the first character is the stronger marker of sentiment.
      - rplst8 5y ago
        If I could roughly generalize the sentiment: Are you just going to stand there and lie through your teeth?! Have you ever seen such an amazing sunset!?
        CRConrad 5y ago
        So you're with joombaga, not willhimsa -- right?
        iggldiggl 5y ago
        I'd tend towards willhinsa and yes, I'd rather switch the question and exclamation marks around in rplst8's examples.
        joombaga 5y ago
        My thought is that punctuation "terminates" a sentence, and so the mark that's further to the right is "terminated" later, therefore it more represents the overall sentiment. The left punctuation mark is like a modifier; it's an adjective before a noun.
        Y_Y 5y ago
        Are you just going to stand there and tell me this isn't the most amazing sunset you've ever seen‽
      - iggldiggl 5y ago
        I think I'd agree with that, too, i.e. the first character being the stronger marker.
coldtea 5y ago
OCD would use the former as those are more proper typographical quotes. Straight edge quotes is a computer text thing, not a typographical convention for regular prose.
- trzeci 5y ago
  You're right. I used to programming quotes so much that every variation from it makes a pain. Especially mentioned below the automatic quote replacement by some text editor. Which does not make sense for me, when I paste a code snippet. Another pain is when I see such code snippets on the web. For the clarity, it's not only the US quotes I have a problem with. Other languages have also their corks: - PL: „quote” - PL: ‚quote’ (single variant) - PL: ‘quote’ (british variant) - FR: «quote» - DE: »quote«
  - seszett 5y ago
    French quotes, unlike most others, must also be surrounded by spaces (like the other punctuation signs that are made of two parts) like this: FR : « quote » And all of the spaces except for the one after the ":" should be non-breaking spaces.
  - Udo_Schmitz 5y ago
    DE would be: „Zitat“. »Zitat« is also allowed. «Zitat» is mostly used in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Note missing spaces compared to French. (Edited after correction from user bloak below)
    - bloak 5y ago
      > »« is allowed but mostly used in Switzerland I think it's «...» in Switzerland, while »...« is widely used in several countries, including Germany, and is the "main" system arguably only in Denmark. See https://jakubmarian.com/map-of-quotation-marks-in-european-languages/ https://jakubmarian.com/map-of-quotation-marks-in-european-l...
      - Udo_Schmitz 5y ago
szszrk 5y ago
"" is a simplification that fits well in keyboard usage and ASCII, but not always real language practices. In my mother tongue we use a „quote”. Our characters in books speak starting from new line with a dash. But it's a different dash from simple minus sign we tend to use online, for simplicity. It's hard to actually use that on the Internet, but in books it's still the way.

Which makes no sense IMHO is to use “” instead of "". But it could be my OCD also.

by trzeci 5y ago

Which makes no sense IMHO is to use “” instead of "". But it could be my OCD also.

Y_Y 5y ago

It's all fun and games until you try to copy the "66 and 99"-style quotes from one place to another, or your ”helpful“ text editor automagically makes a mess of them. It's a pity no good ``asymmetric'' style ever really took off in English. I'm particularly fond of the French «chevrons», and relatedly, ¡Spanish exclamations! ⸘Why has not yet the opening interrobang received similarly wide adoption‽

iggldiggl 5y ago
I don't really like the dedicated interrobang character, because it loses the distinction between ?! and !?, which is probably rather subtle, but to my mind definitively there.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  I would argue that those two choices remain available to you, and that you can reach even finer levels of subtlety by using (or conspicuously not using) the interrobang. (Just don't use "??!" because that's a trigraph for "|".)
- joombaga 5y ago
  How would you define "?!" vs "!?" ? I agree they're different. To me the "greater" feeling comes second. "?!" is more surprising, while "!?" is more confusing. With "‽" the feelings are equal.
  - willhinsa 5y ago
    I agree with you on ‽, but differ with you on the "!?" and "?!" -- for me, the first character is the stronger marker of sentiment.
    - rplst8 5y ago
      If I could roughly generalize the sentiment: Are you just going to stand there and lie through your teeth?! Have you ever seen such an amazing sunset!?
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        So you're with joombaga, not willhimsa -- right?
        iggldiggl 5y ago
        I'd tend towards willhinsa and yes, I'd rather switch the question and exclamation marks around in rplst8's examples.
        joombaga 5y ago
        My thought is that punctuation "terminates" a sentence, and so the mark that's further to the right is "terminated" later, therefore it more represents the overall sentiment. The left punctuation mark is like a modifier; it's an adjective before a noun.
      - Y_Y 5y ago
        Are you just going to stand there and tell me this isn't the most amazing sunset you've ever seen‽
    - iggldiggl 5y ago
      I think I'd agree with that, too, i.e. the first character being the stronger marker.

coldtea 5y ago

OCD would use the former as those are more proper typographical quotes. Straight edge quotes is a computer text thing, not a typographical convention for regular prose.

trzeci 5y ago
You're right. I used to programming quotes so much that every variation from it makes a pain. Especially mentioned below the automatic quote replacement by some text editor. Which does not make sense for me, when I paste a code snippet. Another pain is when I see such code snippets on the web. For the clarity, it's not only the US quotes I have a problem with. Other languages have also their corks: - PL: „quote” - PL: ‚quote’ (single variant) - PL: ‘quote’ (british variant) - FR: «quote» - DE: »quote«
- seszett 5y ago
  French quotes, unlike most others, must also be surrounded by spaces (like the other punctuation signs that are made of two parts) like this: FR : « quote » And all of the spaces except for the one after the ":" should be non-breaking spaces.
- Udo_Schmitz 5y ago
  DE would be: „Zitat“. »Zitat« is also allowed. «Zitat» is mostly used in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Note missing spaces compared to French. (Edited after correction from user bloak below)
  - bloak 5y ago
    > »« is allowed but mostly used in Switzerland I think it's «...» in Switzerland, while »...« is widely used in several countries, including Germany, and is the "main" system arguably only in Denmark. See https://jakubmarian.com/map-of-quotation-marks-in-european-languages/ https://jakubmarian.com/map-of-quotation-marks-in-european-l...
    - Udo_Schmitz 5y ago

szszrk 5y ago

"" is a simplification that fits well in keyboard usage and ASCII, but not always real language practices. In my mother tongue we use a „quote”. Our characters in books speak starting from new line with a dash. But it's a different dash from simple minus sign we tend to use online, for simplicity. It's hard to actually use that on the Internet, but in books it's still the way.