I'd presume it's the same motivation behind quotes in TeX (`foo' and ``bar'')—maybe typewriters didn't use to have true curly quotes, or something? EDIT: https

I'd presume it's the same motivation behind quotes in TeX (`foo' and ``bar'')—maybe typewriters didn't use to have true curly quotes, or something? EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backtick#As_surrogate_of_apostrophe_or_(opening)_single_quote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backtick#As_surrogate_of_apost... seems relevant