4 ms·
The real answer is to use the British style but then combine the " and . into a ligature in the font so that it looks nicer like the American style. Simple! ed
by po 5y ago
The real answer is to use the British style but then combine the " and . into a ligature in the font so that it looks nicer like the American style. Simple!
edit: Just searched and there are some people doing exactly this with negative kerning:
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/369077/overlapping-quotes-with-periods-and-commas#369110 https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/369077/overlapping-q...
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/202799/how-can-i-typeset-a-quote-directly-above-a-period https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/202799/how-can-i-typ...
- jeroenhd 5y agoWow, I can't believe how much I now realize I want this to be the default. This whole situation feels like the result of a lack of computers unable to automatically place these "ligatures" and I've never considered how we should've ditched this restriction years ago.
- flyingfences 5y agoAs I recall, this historically was the standard. In handwriting, the ligature could be and was placed naturally. In professional printing with moveable type, the ligature could be included in the typeset. Only once typewriters were invented and couldn't spare a key for every ligature did the sequential style appear and the British and American styles diverge.
- bee_rider 5y agoThis seems like it ought to be possible on a typewriter -- or at least, one with a true backspace. I'm not sure if the backspace was an advanced/late feature, though. It seems pretty simple, but mechanical parts are pretty fiddly I guess.
- Spivak 5y agoWhat ligature would you propose for "? or "!
- tomtheelder 5y agoYou don't need one for those. Even in the American style those are supposed to be placed inside or outside the quotations depending on whether the question/exclamation is part of the quote or not.
- jeroenhd 5y agoThere's no real ligature for those, but those characters don't really take up any unnecessary whitespace. Combining low and high punctuation marks makes more sense. You could try to turn "! into a well-kerned '!', with he quotation marks very close to the exclamation point, but for the question mark such a system would probably not work. That said, perhaps there's something to be found in other languages. Some quote with «quote», some with “quote”, others with „quote“, and there's many other variations. I can see how ligatures can work with constructions such as ¿question? can have the quotation makes placed closer in the beginning of the question marks, especially with the slow change from the angled brackets to the English quotation marks in some Spanish speaking countries.
- xdennis 5y agoHow does this work with longer punctuation like “?”, “!”, or “‽”?
- albrewer 5y agoI like this solution way more than anything proposed here. It's how I'd write it by hand.