which quotation marks to use

[The Bicycling Guitarist]

Hi. For many years I have been using " for double quotation marks in
the HTML code, but the opening and closing quotation marks render the same
in my browser.

I'm considering going through and using “ and ” (in pairs as
needed) instead. Are there any *disadvantages* to doing so, besides the time
it will take to make the change?

Thanks.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit The Bicycling Guitarist:

For many years I have been using " for double quotation
marks in the HTML code,

In vain, I'm afraid, since they give no benefit over using just the "
character (except inside attribute values).

but the opening and closing quotation marks
render the same in my browser.

As defined, since " unambiguously means the ASCII quotation mark.

I'm considering going through and using “ and ” (in pairs
as needed) instead.

For English (in American style), that's OK.

Are there any *disadvantages* to doing so,
besides the time it will take to make the change?

Not really these days. Years ago, they were somewhat risky due to lack of
support in browsers, and people (including me) advised against using them,
since there was so little (namely typographic details) to be won and so much
(namely integrity of content) to be lost. But by now, the odds of losing are
so minuscule that they can be ignored.

I haven't taken the trouble of converting existing pages except when I make
some major revision anyway. Note that if you use the curly quotes, you
should - for stylistic uniformity - also use curly single quotes and
apostrophes (instead of ASCII apostrophe, '), en or em dashes or minus sign
when appropriate instead of ASCII hyphen, and maybe even the horizontal
ellipsis character instead of "...".
(See http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www/windows-chars.html )

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[mbstevens]

On Fri, 18 May 2007 11:57:26 -0700, The Bicycling Guitarist wrote:

Hi. For many years I have been using " for double quotation marks in
the HTML code, but the opening and closing quotation marks render the same
in my browser.

I'm considering going through and using “ and ” (in pairs as
needed) instead. Are there any *disadvantages* to doing so, besides the time
it will take to make the change?

Thanks.

No need to use an entity at all, usually:

<q>Use to highlight short quotations from
outside resources.</q>

....will let the visitor's browser decide how and if to render the
quotation marks. Support for the element is not universal, but now common.
An optional cite attribute can point to a URI of the source.

Suppose you decide to use an entity anyway. If you are also kind enough
to let the visitors decide about their own fonts, support is
probably more likely for &quot than the others. If you choose the
visitors' fonts, they may or may not have the fonts you specify, so their
browser or CSS again chooses the font anyway.

So, any way you cut it, some visitors are not going to get exactly what
you want them to get.

If you use &ldquo; and &rdquo;, be sure to specify a very, very common
font that supports them, and which is supported in most browsers.
I usually just go with <q>...</q>. In CSS the :lang pseudoclass
lets you specify the kinds of quotes for a language in CSS with markup
like:

q:lang(en) {"'" "'"};
q:lang(fr) {"«" "»" };

--
mbstevens
http://www.mbstevens.com/

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit mbstevens:

<q>Use to highlight short quotations from
outside resources.</q>

Bzzzt. Are you intentionally distributing disinformation or just ignorant?

Support for the element is not universal, but now common.

False. Let me guess - you didn't bother testing, or you are just trolling?

If you use &ldquo; and &rdquo;, be sure to specify a very, very common
font that supports them, and which is supported in most browsers.

Nonsense. Virtually any font contains them.

I usually just go with <q>...</q>. In CSS the :lang pseudoclass
lets you specify the kinds of quotes for a language in CSS with markup
like:

q:lang(en) {"'" "'"};
q:lang(fr) {"«" "»" };

And, as usual, both rules are wrong (in addition to not being supported e.g.
by IE).

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[mbstevens]

On Fri, 18 May 2007 21:34:23 +0000, mbstevens wrote:

q:lang(en) {"'" "'"};
q:lang(fr) {"«" "»" };

Pardon, got sloppy there. Should be:

q:lang(en) {quotes: "'" "'"};
q:lang(fr) {quotes: "«" "»" };

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit mbstevens:

Pardon, got sloppy there. Should be:

>q:lang(en) {quotes: "'" "'"};
q:lang(fr) {quotes: "«" "»" };

Still both wrong, by the rules of English and French punctuation.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Dr J R Stockton]

In comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html message
<_G************ @newsfe12.lga>, Fri, 18 May 2007 11:57:26, The Bicycling
Guitarist <Ch***@TheBicyc lingGuitarist.n etposted:

>Hi. For many years I have been using &quot; for double quotation marks in
the HTML code, but the opening and closing quotation marks render the same
in my browser.

I'm considering going through and using &ldquo; and &rdquo; (in pairs as
needed) instead. Are there any *disadvantages* to doing so, besides the time
it will take to make the change?

Provided that &quot; occurs in the source only in properly-matched pairs
(not necessarily the case in a page discussing characters or containing
javascript, for example), it should be fairly quick to make the change
with an adequate RegExp-capable programmable editor.

--
(c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon. co.uk Turnpike v6.05 IE 6.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demo n.co.uk/- FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
I find MiniTrue useful for viewing/searching/altering files, at a DOS prompt;
free, DOS/Win/UNIX, <URL:http://www.idiotsdelig ht.net/minitrue/unsupported.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit Dr J R Stockton:

Provided that &quot; occurs in the source only in properly-matched
pairs (not necessarily the case in a page discussing characters or
containing javascript, for example), it should be fairly quick to
make the change with an adequate RegExp-capable programmable editor.

Yes, but what would happen to quotation marks written as " or to apostrophes
or to hyphens that should be dashes or minus signs? My point is that
converting from ASCII punctuation to proper orthography is more than just
making quotation marks "smart", and the process as a whole is rather
difficult to automate.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Adrienne Boswell]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Jukka K. Korpela"
<jk******@cs.tu t.fiwriting in news:OMo3i.1657 93$Uh7.130437
@reader1.news.s aunalahti.fi:

>Are there any *disadvantages* to doing so,
besides the time it will take to make the change?

Not really these days

I have to disagree with that... but then I have a special reason for
wanting to disagree. Clients sometimes send me stuff to copy and paste
into their web sites, and I have to go back and make sure that the page
doesn't show something strange. Usually, I just replace them with simple
".

--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

[Dr J R Stockton]

In comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html message <MoG3i.166254$w Q5.160313@
reader1.news.sa unalahti.fi>, Sat, 19 May 2007 20:24:18, Jukka K. Korpela
<jk******@cs.tu t.fiposted:

>Scripsit Dr J R Stockton:

>Provided that &quot; occurs in the source only in properly-matched
pairs (not necessarily the case in a page discussing characters or
containing javascript, for example), it should be fairly quick to
make the change with an adequate RegExp-capable programmable editor.

Yes, but what would happen to quotation marks written as " or to
apostrophes or to hyphens that should be dashes or minus signs? My
point is that converting from ASCII punctuation to proper orthography
is more than just making quotation marks "smart", and the process as a
whole is rather difficult to automate.

Doing part of the task automatically or semi-automatically will reduce
the amount of task left to do by hand.

Unless I was certain that all &quot; were in properly-matched pairs, I'd
do it that substitution semi-automatically, with each change queried.
It's easier to assess whether each suggested change is certainly right,
and type Y (else N), than it is to type the change entirely manually.

Likewise, in ordinary text, every occurrence of <letter>'s<whit espace>
is a probable candidate for converting to use a formal apostrophe; and
probably every <letter>'<lette r>. Things may be harder if the
underlying text is Kikuyu, Xhosa, Klingon, or includes APL.

Another use of such a tool is to check for common typos. It's tiresome
to use a general spell-checker on my Web source files, because of the
topics and content. But every page, before upload, is checked both with
TIDY and with a scan for these lower-case "words" - fot onr shouls toy
thr foind anf ar hoe 8061 wnen ot os is - which I often type wrongly. I
don't write about playthings or gardening; and in embedded javascript I
just avoid those identifiers. But each proposed substitution is
queried.

--
(c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon. co.uk Turnpike v6.05 IE 6.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demo n.co.uk/- FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
I find MiniTrue useful for viewing/searching/altering files, at a DOS prompt;
free, DOS/Win/UNIX, <URL:http://www.idiotsdelig ht.net/minitrue/unsupported.