Re: Historic versus modern ASCII quotes

From: Martin JD Green (mjdgreen@contactbox.co.uk)
Date: Mon Feb 28 2000 - 14:55:28 EST


----- Original Message -----
From: Robert A. Rosenberg <Bob.Rosenberg@digitscorp.com>
To: Unicode List <unicode@unicode.org>
Cc: Robert A. Rosenberg <bob.rosenberg@digitscorp.com>;
<unicode@unicode.org>
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 5:08 AM
Subject: Re: Historic versus modern ASCII quotes

> At 17:21 -0500 on 02/25/00, Gary P. Grosso wrote about Re: Historic
> versus modern ASCII quotes:
>
> ><x-flowed>And if there is no nesting, in UKE, you use which...
> >double quotes?
> >
> >I ask this because I do not see quotations generally done in
> >single quotes in books I have of UK origin.
>
> I've just pulled a number of "published in the UK" books off my
> shelves and all use single quotes for normal designation of speech.
> I've not gone line by line looking for someone quoting something but
> I seem to remember that this uses a double quote character.
>
> >
> >If the use of single quotes is predicated by the subsequent
> >appearance of inner quotations, then software would have to
> >"look ahead" to get it right.
>
> There is no software involved. When the text is initially entered,
> single quotes are used to designate what someone is saying (just as
> in the US double quotes are used) and (if needed) double quotes for a
> quotation. The normal WP will handle this automatically (ie: it
> converts the straight character into the correct curly/typographic
> character automatically including not toggling open/closed state for
> the appearance of an apostrophe [if it is well designed]).
>
> >
> >At 01:41 PM 2/25/00 -0800, you wrote:
> >>At 12:44 AM 02/25/2000 -0800, Alex Bochannek wrote:
> >>>In English you
> >>>open whith a high "66" or "6" and close with a high "99" or "9"
> >>>(0x201D and 0x2019).
> >>
> >>The use of "66/99" and "6/9" differed between US and UK English. A quote
> >>in USE uses the "66/99" for direct quotes and "6/9" for embedded quotes.
> >>In UKE they are reversed with the "6/9" used for the direct quote and
> >>"66/99" for the embedded quote. Thus what would be printed in the US as
> >>(using typewriter not typographical quotes):
> >>
> >>"It was JFK who said 'Ask not what ...'", Joe said.
> >>
> >>would be printed in the UK as:
> >>
> >>'It was JFK who said "Ask not what ..."', Joe said.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >---
> >Gary Grosso
> >ggrosso@arbortext.com
> >Arbortext, Inc.
> >Ann Arbor, MI, USA
> >
> ></x-flowed>
>
>
To quote from 'Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University
Press, Oxford'

Single marks are to be used for a first quotation; then double for a
quotation within a quotation. If there should be yet another quotation
within the second quotation it is necessary to revert to single quotation
marks.

This has always been my bible for laying out text for publication.

Martin JD Green



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