4 ms·

What is a soft quote?

minimaxir 4y ago
They are better known as "smart quotes" iOS at the least by default will substitute "dumb" quotes with smart quotes in text boxes.
- akkartik 4y ago
  Looking around, I got the impression they're double rather than single quotes.
  - xk3 4y ago
    smart/soft quotes are usually: ‘|’|“|” but there are also other quoting glyphs in ASCII but especially UTF-8
    - fuckstick 4y ago
      Why are they soft or smart? That makes no sense - they’re just open and close quotation marks.
      - elguyosupremo 4y ago
        Smart quotes really refers the feature some software has where it automatically detects what type of quote should be used (opening or closing) and puts that in so you can just use the same quote key at the beginning and end and it'll substitute in the right "smart quote".
      - drran 4y ago
        Because option to enable substitution of minutes(') and seconds(") symbols by proper quotation marks is often called as «Enable smart quotes». For example: 10° 33' 19" -> 10° 33« 19». Very smart!
        anjbe 4y ago
        Good post! I must point out, though, the correct symbol for minutes and seconds is actually the prime. As in, 10° 33′ 19″.
      - bentcorner 4y ago
        They are smart because the feature that inserts them is "smart". "Context-aware quotes" or "smartly inserted quotes" might be more accurate. A PM somewhere probably thought "smart quotes" sounded neat, and here we are.
  - TheDong 4y ago
    That's incorrect. This is a double quote: ", 0x22, ascii This is a smart open quote: “, 0x201c, unicode This is a smart close quote: ”, 0x201d, unicode By default your keyboard double-quote key produces the ascii double quote mark, and that is what's used for quoting in virtually every programming language. Word and many email clients will use smart-quotes by default, but they're pretty rare in programming, hence why the "some among us" phrasing calling them out as strange. That's what the linked repo is referring to by soft quotes, and the command given specifically uses 0x201d above.
    - fuckstick 4y ago
      They’re not smart quotes - they're just open and close quotation marks. What is smart about them? And I don’t see how one is any “softer” than the other. People’s programming editors often do paren matching - does that make them smart parens? No they’re still just regular old parens.
      - TheDong 4y ago
        Why do we call them "hot dogs" when they typically have a very low percentage of dog meat (often 0% I think)? Why do we call it a "gravy boat" when it's not literally a boat? Did you know there are male ladybugs? Language is descriptive, and people do in fact call them smart quotes. That doesn't mean there has to be anything smart about them, and I'm not making the claim there is, I'm just using an agreed-upon term to convey what I'm talking about.
        Manu40 4y ago
        "gravy boat" Cause it's shaped like a simple boat. Or sort of is. Kind of like how 'soft quotes' are considered soft because they aren't in a very hard like up and down position, and are instead positioned like a feather softly falling. (or so I guess)
        fuckstick 4y ago
        > Why do we call them "hot dogs" when they typically have a very low percentage of dog meat Because historically, the insinuation was that cheap sausages contained dog meat, that’s why. Someone has answered your gravyboat question. And your ladybug example is bordering on blatant troll baiting. > Language is descriptive, and people do in fact call them smart quotes. That doesn't mean there has to Some “people” call them ATM machines even though the M stands for machine. > I'm just using an agreed-upon term to convey what I'm talking about. The agreed upon terms are Left Double Quotation Mark and Right Double Quotation Mark - nothing about smart quotes in the Unicode tables. I get that the term smart is used colloquially - but your comment suggests that their Unicode names are “smart”. I do think it is overall silly and confusing to refer to the characters themselves based on some formatting or automatic insertion feature.
- colejohnson66 4y ago
  Why is OP describing that as “disturbing” (I type with “smart” quotes)? It’s not intentional; it’s just because I’m on an iPhone.[a] On the default keyboard, if I want "dumb" quotes, I have to tap and hold the key to get the popup. Simply tapping the quote key is less effort. [a]: On my computers, I’ll use "dumb" quotes. Easy way to see where I typed a comment from, I guess.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    it’s an old gatekeeping / geek dick measuring thing, don’t worry about it
    - Manu40 4y ago
      I'm upvoting you, because calling it disturbing really doesn't make sense unless egotism is involved. IMHO. If someone can explain why it's not just egotism, please go right ahead. Otherwise, it really does seem like it. To me at least. Other comments try to sort of deal with this problem in their explanations about soft and hard quotes, but they don't really deal with the part about it being disturbing. What's so disturbing about using a feature available on your device? Especially when it does nothing harmful to the user, or recipients of that users communications?
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        It is egotism
      - ShamelessC 4y ago
        A good-faith interpretation would be that "disturbing" is meant more lightly than that. It's more like saying use of tabs (or spaces) is "disturbing". It is a cultural disagreement on surface level, but not _really_ a disagreement if you were to probe further (I doubt the author thinks people are literally disturbed if they use soft quotes). Further, if you check my sibling comment you'll see that it is a common mistake for beginner/intermediate coders to paste these quotes into code. This is the source of the "cultural debate" in this instance. They are making a judgement about how this common copy/paste problem shows up in practice. Not a judgement about "proper usage". It's honestly a little surprising that you took this so personally. It reads rather playfully in my opinion.
- Thorrez 4y ago
  Are there any other places on on the internet that call them "soft quotes"?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

They are better known as "smart quotes" iOS at the least by default will substitute "dumb" quotes with smart quotes in text boxes.

akkartik 4y ago
Looking around, I got the impression they're double rather than single quotes.
- xk3 4y ago
  smart/soft quotes are usually: ‘|’|“|” but there are also other quoting glyphs in ASCII but especially UTF-8
  - fuckstick 4y ago
    Why are they soft or smart? That makes no sense - they’re just open and close quotation marks.
    - elguyosupremo 4y ago
      Smart quotes really refers the feature some software has where it automatically detects what type of quote should be used (opening or closing) and puts that in so you can just use the same quote key at the beginning and end and it'll substitute in the right "smart quote".
    - drran 4y ago
      Because option to enable substitution of minutes(') and seconds(") symbols by proper quotation marks is often called as «Enable smart quotes». For example: 10° 33' 19" -> 10° 33« 19». Very smart!
      - anjbe 4y ago
        Good post! I must point out, though, the correct symbol for minutes and seconds is actually the prime. As in, 10° 33′ 19″.
    - bentcorner 4y ago
      They are smart because the feature that inserts them is "smart". "Context-aware quotes" or "smartly inserted quotes" might be more accurate. A PM somewhere probably thought "smart quotes" sounded neat, and here we are.
- TheDong 4y ago
  That's incorrect. This is a double quote: ", 0x22, ascii This is a smart open quote: “, 0x201c, unicode This is a smart close quote: ”, 0x201d, unicode By default your keyboard double-quote key produces the ascii double quote mark, and that is what's used for quoting in virtually every programming language. Word and many email clients will use smart-quotes by default, but they're pretty rare in programming, hence why the "some among us" phrasing calling them out as strange. That's what the linked repo is referring to by soft quotes, and the command given specifically uses 0x201d above.
  - fuckstick 4y ago
    They’re not smart quotes - they're just open and close quotation marks. What is smart about them? And I don’t see how one is any “softer” than the other. People’s programming editors often do paren matching - does that make them smart parens? No they’re still just regular old parens.
    - TheDong 4y ago
      Why do we call them "hot dogs" when they typically have a very low percentage of dog meat (often 0% I think)? Why do we call it a "gravy boat" when it's not literally a boat? Did you know there are male ladybugs? Language is descriptive, and people do in fact call them smart quotes. That doesn't mean there has to be anything smart about them, and I'm not making the claim there is, I'm just using an agreed-upon term to convey what I'm talking about.
      - Manu40 4y ago
        "gravy boat" Cause it's shaped like a simple boat. Or sort of is. Kind of like how 'soft quotes' are considered soft because they aren't in a very hard like up and down position, and are instead positioned like a feather softly falling. (or so I guess)
      - fuckstick 4y ago
        > Why do we call them "hot dogs" when they typically have a very low percentage of dog meat Because historically, the insinuation was that cheap sausages contained dog meat, that’s why. Someone has answered your gravyboat question. And your ladybug example is bordering on blatant troll baiting. > Language is descriptive, and people do in fact call them smart quotes. That doesn't mean there has to Some “people” call them ATM machines even though the M stands for machine. > I'm just using an agreed-upon term to convey what I'm talking about. The agreed upon terms are Left Double Quotation Mark and Right Double Quotation Mark - nothing about smart quotes in the Unicode tables. I get that the term smart is used colloquially - but your comment suggests that their Unicode names are “smart”. I do think it is overall silly and confusing to refer to the characters themselves based on some formatting or automatic insertion feature.
colejohnson66 4y ago
Why is OP describing that as “disturbing” (I type with “smart” quotes)? It’s not intentional; it’s just because I’m on an iPhone.[a] On the default keyboard, if I want "dumb" quotes, I have to tap and hold the key to get the popup. Simply tapping the quote key is less effort. [a]: On my computers, I’ll use "dumb" quotes. Easy way to see where I typed a comment from, I guess.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  it’s an old gatekeeping / geek dick measuring thing, don’t worry about it
  - Manu40 4y ago
    I'm upvoting you, because calling it disturbing really doesn't make sense unless egotism is involved. IMHO. If someone can explain why it's not just egotism, please go right ahead. Otherwise, it really does seem like it. To me at least. Other comments try to sort of deal with this problem in their explanations about soft and hard quotes, but they don't really deal with the part about it being disturbing. What's so disturbing about using a feature available on your device? Especially when it does nothing harmful to the user, or recipients of that users communications?
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      It is egotism
    - ShamelessC 4y ago
      A good-faith interpretation would be that "disturbing" is meant more lightly than that. It's more like saying use of tabs (or spaces) is "disturbing". It is a cultural disagreement on surface level, but not _really_ a disagreement if you were to probe further (I doubt the author thinks people are literally disturbed if they use soft quotes). Further, if you check my sibling comment you'll see that it is a common mistake for beginner/intermediate coders to paste these quotes into code. This is the source of the "cultural debate" in this instance. They are making a judgement about how this common copy/paste problem shows up in practice. Not a judgement about "proper usage". It's honestly a little surprising that you took this so personally. It reads rather playfully in my opinion.
Thorrez 4y ago
Are there any other places on on the internet that call them "soft quotes"?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]