Crikey! A Verdana's got my baby!

[Karl Smith]

Anyone who has read c.i.w.a.* for more than a few weeks knows that one
of the pet hates of the CIWAHians is Verdana (it's a typeface, BTW).
Future archeologists stumbling across these messages out of context
could be forgiven for thinking "Verdana" must be some kind of
dangerous animal. We must get rid of it, before it gets us!

Oddly, they can never seem to articulate *why* they dislike Verdana,
other than some vague assertion that it looks different. Surely that's
the point. What would be the purpose of all these font files that
infest my computer if all the typefaces looked the same? I can't
understand the apparent level of fear and loathing, just because
something looks a bit different. "A fair go for Verdana," that's all
I'm saying.

If you really find Verdana that distracting, all you need do is remove
the font from your *personal computer* - a simple, painless operation
that will take only a few seconds. Repeatedly asserting to other
people that they should not use something just because the cult
members have chosen to dislike it makes no sense whatsoever.

Is there anyone out there who has actually removed Verdana from their
computer? Perhaps they could explain what the often alluded to, but
rarely explained, "problem" really is?

--
Karl Smith.

[Karl Smith]

Els <el*********@ti scali.nl> wrote:

You're talking to the wrong person. I love Verdana. Look at
my site - http://locusmeus.com/ - all Verdana.
Now that site is a good example here. I took one glance at it and
immediately noticed the ASCII "chicken scratches" instead of proper
inverted commas. They *are* distracting. If I had to choose between:-

1) viewing www.example.org in the typeface of my preference with ASCII
"quote marks" or:

2) viewing it in the typeface of the de-ziners preference with correct
inverted commas:

- I'd let the designer choose the typeface every time. This is my
problem - those quote marks bug *me* - but I don't try to claim it as
an objective fact that quote marks are "a problem". So why do the font
mafia assert that Verdana "is a problem". Why don't they just write,
"I don't like Verdana" instead of claiming they represent the silent
majority.

If the "majority" of users find Verdana to be so distracting, why is
it one the most widely installed fonts there is (second only to
Arial)?

Of course. But as it is a wide font, anyone without Verdana
installed on their computer, will have to read a narrower font.

Yes. Which is exactly what they would be doing whether you specify
Verdana or not. By specifying Verdana you are not forcing anyone to
use a narrower font than normal if they don't have Verdana.

Problem arises when someone doesn't have Verdana, or uses
their own preferred font. 85% of most other fonts ends up
too small too read.

Set the minimum font size of your browser, that's what it's for. You
can do that at the same time you're uninstalling Verdana. It would be
far easier for the anti-Verdana kooks/cranks to configure their
browsers properly than to try to persuade the entire rest of the world
to adopt their personal preferences in typography.

If you know all your and everybody's visitors personally,
please advise them to notice the possibility of a) resizing
the text (I wouldn't want to have to feed all the IE surfers
who don't know that) b) (un)installing a font and c) setting
a minimum size font.

No you don't need to advise anyone of anything. All authors need to do
is accept that font-size is to be set in percentages for exceptional
elements only - not for the main text of your page. Do that and
everything else will work well. Break that rule and the situation will
always become a competition between users' preferences and author's
preferences.

--
Karl Smith.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

go************@ kjsmith.com (Karl Smith) wrote:

If I had to choose between:-

1) viewing www.example.org in the typeface of my preference with
ASCII "quote marks" or:

2) viewing it in the typeface of the de-ziners preference with
correct inverted commas:

- I'd let the designer choose the typeface every time.
I'm not sure I see what you really mean here. Using the standardized
names for characters might have helped to express your idea better.

If you wish to use a broken font, that's your privilege, as a user.
A font that presents the Ascii quotation mark or the Ascii apostrophe as
curly or slanted is broken, since those characters _by definition_
have straight (vertical) glyphs (see the Unicode standard). Such
presentation also loses the distinction between those characters and some
common punctuation characters. (Consider what this means when reading a
page that discusses the various characters.)
This is my
problem - those quote marks bug *me* - but I don't try to claim it as
an objective fact that quote marks are "a problem".
Whether you claim it or not, they are objectively a problem. The
_characters_ " and ' are not correct quotation marks or apostrophes in
_any_ human language (if I may generalize a bit - please feel free to
correct me if I'm ignoring some language of New Guinea), yet they are
widely used on the Web as punctuation marks in different human languages,
for certain technical reasons, which you probably mean. This is a
_character_ level problem, _not_ to be messed up with guesswork fixes at
font level.
So why do the
font mafia assert that Verdana "is a problem".

You surely know why it is problem. If your original message was an April
fool's joke, you may now drop the "April" part.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Tim]

go************@ kjsmith.com (Karl Smith) wrote:

If I had to choose between:-

1) viewing www.example.org in the typeface of my preference with
ASCII "quote marks" or:

2) viewing it in the typeface of the de-ziners preference with
correct inverted commas:

- I'd let the designer choose the typeface every time.

Niggle: Quote marks are not "inverted commas," they're neither upside
down, nor commas.
"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tu t.fi> posted:
I'm not sure I see what you really mean here. Using the standardized
names for characters might have helped to express your idea better.

If you wish to use a broken font, that's your privilege, as a user.
A font that presents the Ascii quotation mark or the Ascii apostrophe as
curly or slanted is broken, since those characters _by definition_
have straight (vertical) glyphs (see the Unicode standard). Such
presentation also loses the distinction between those characters and some
common punctuation characters. (Consider what this means when reading a
page that discusses the various characters.)

I understand the reason for "straight" quotes, you can put them at either
side of a quote (open and close it), without it looking like it's backwards
(facing the wrong way). But why a straight apostrophe? It only goes in
one place (where abbreviations are), an apostrophe is not a quote mark, at
all (so you can't have a backwards looking one in front of a quote, and an
okay looking one at the end, because it's not the character that belongs
around quoted text).

As far as I'm aware, we only have one way to draw an apostrophe (regardless
of ASCII), and that is how the font should be designed. If someone wants
to be silly enough to use an apostrophe where they should be using quotes,
that's their fault for using the wrong character.

e.g. &lsquo;I really don't like single-quoted text,&rsquo; said Tim.
Should actually draw a real apostrophe in the "don't" word, not that
abomination that most fonts draw. Everyone just seems to copy the shape of
the old 8 by 8 pixel rendering from ancient terminals, rather than draw an
"apostrophe ". That, to me, is a serious fault in the fonts, rather than
the use of that character.

--
If you insist on e-mailing me, use the reply-to address (it's real but
temporary). But please reply to the group, like you're supposed to.

This message was sent without a virus, please delete some files yourself.

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Sun, 4 Apr 2004, Tim wrote:

If someone wants to be silly enough to use an apostrophe where they
should be using quotes, that's their fault for using the wrong
character.
Silly enough?

According to the Unicode recommendation, they should be using a
(right) single quote as apostrophe.

If you reckon that using an apostrophe as single quote is "silly
enough", then it'll be interesting to hear what you have to say about
the Unicode recommendation.

Unfortunately, you're making the same kind of mistake as the other
contributors, and assuming that by alluding to "real" characters you
can make it clear to us what you mean. But the Unicode recommendations
say something different. For example that the APOSTROPHE is not
suitable for use as an apostrophe, but only as a compatibility
character - for single quote as well as for apostrophe. And so on.
Consequently, we can't really understand in detail what you're trying
to tell us.
e.g. &lsquo;I really don't like single-quoted text,&rsquo; said Tim.
Should actually draw a real apostrophe in the "don't" word,
Unicode doesn't have a character REAL APOSTROPHE, and its
recommendation says something which seems to be incompatible with what
you say you want.
Everyone just seems to copy the shape of the old 8 by 8 pixel
rendering from ancient terminals, rather than draw an "apostrophe ".
At which position in the font?
That, to me, is a serious fault in the fonts, rather than the use of
that character.

*Which* character, ferchrissake? The ASCII character (and Unicode
compatibility character) APOSTROPHE is meant to be upright. If you
don't want an upright apostrophe, then don't use the ASCII character.

If the font is correctly implementing the Unicode recommendation, then
you're shooting at the wrong target when you claim there's a "serious
fault" in the font. So are you saying there's a "serious fault" in
the Unicode recommendation?

[Stan Brown]

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tu t.fi> wrote in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.stylesheets:

The
_characters_ " and ' are not correct quotation marks or apostrophes in
_any_ human language

You have said this before, and it makes no sense. I can't speak for
Finnish, but they are perfectly correct in English, for instance.
Presumably you would agree that English is a human language?

Hint: consider the _names_ of those characters.

For instance, when I go to
<http://www.alanwood.ne t/demos/ent4_frame.html > and select
"quotation mark", what do I find? ", that's what.

I'm sure you actually have a valid point to make, but what you are
actually _saying_ doesn't convey it. If you want to be persuasive,
please say what you mean more plainly.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Stan Brown <th************ @fastmail.fm> wrote:

The
_characters _ " and ' are not correct quotation marks or apostrophes in
_any_ human language
You have said this before, and it makes no sense.

Why not? The statement looks pretty simple to me. I guess you mean you
don't agree with it.
I can't speak for
Finnish, but they are perfectly correct in English, for instance.
No, take any English grammar and you'll see how it described the
quotation marks. They are surely asymmetric and "curly". Finnish and a
few other languages use symmetric quotation marks, but not the Ascii
quotation mark.
Presumably you would agree that English is a human language?
Well, let's avoid that issue. :-)
Hint: consider the _names_ of those characters.

The names of characters are often misleading, and you cannot deduce the
meaning from the name alone, especially when there are explicit
statements to the contrary.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Jim Ley]

On Sun, 4 Apr 2004 17:33:11 +0000 (UTC), "Jukka K. Korpela"
<jk******@cs.tu t.fi> wrote:

Stan Brown <th************ @fastmail.fm> wrote:

I can't speak for
Finnish, but they are perfectly correct in English, for instance.

No, take any English grammar and you'll see how it described the
quotation marks.

But English Grammar is descriptive, and not proscriptive, and with the
huge body of material which does use " for quotations, you'd be hard
pushed to say it was definitively wrong.

You could certainly say that many people regard it as so, and that
otehr symbols are more commonly used, but I don't see how you can
claim it to be wrong.

Jim.
--
comp.lang.javas cript FAQ - http://jibbering.com/faq/

[Jukka K. Korpela]

ji*@jibbering.c om (Jim Ley) wrote:

But English Grammar is descriptive, and not proscriptive, and with the
huge body of material which does use " for quotations, you'd be hard
pushed to say it was definitively wrong.

Sorry, but the English language has orthography rules, too, and they have
always used asymmetric quotation marks; the Ascii apostrophe was never
anything but a typerwriter-age and early computer-era surrogate.
There's no point in arguing about this - especially here. (The only CSS-
related point is really that CSS specifications have got quotation rules
in many languages all wrong when they present the 'quotes' property, but
this is of little practical value since that property is currently
useless in WWW authoring.)

I still use " and ' on my pages, mostly, and naturally on Usenet. But
this only means using an incorrect surrogate, for the noble cause of
being more accessible. (I almost decided to switch to correct punctuation
on all new pages, but then I learned that the Google translator
cluelessly fails to recognize the right single quotation mark as an
apostrophe.)

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Jim Ley]

On Sun, 4 Apr 2004 20:35:35 +0000 (UTC), "Jukka K. Korpela"
<jk******@cs.tu t.fi> wrote:

ji*@jibbering. com (Jim Ley) wrote:

But English Grammar is descriptive, and not proscriptive, and with the
huge body of material which does use " for quotations, you'd be hard
pushed to say it was definitively wrong.

Sorry, but the English language has orthography rules, too, and they have
always used asymmetric quotation marks;

I can cite you many millions of instances where they do not, so your
claim that they always have is clearly bogus. There's a good reason
why that change occured - but good reasons are what change a languages
rules. They are not immutable. The Rules of English are free to
change, and whilst you're free to claim they haven't, there's
considerable evidence they have, so please don't be so confident in
your assertions.

Jim.

F-ups set to poster.
--
comp.lang.javas cript FAQ - http://jibbering.com/faq/

[Stan Brown]

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tu t.fi> wrote in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.stylesheets:

No, take any English grammar and you'll see how it described the
quotation marks.

I have three English grammars on my shelf, as it happens, and _none_
of them specifies the shape of a punctuation mark.

Again I ask, what do you mean by saying " and ' are not correct in
any human language?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/