Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2000 21:42:49 +0200 (CEST) From: Oliver Fromme <olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Punctuation conventions Message-ID: <200006031942.VAA55917@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> In-Reply-To: <8h9nom$2721$1@atlantis.rz.tu-clausthal.de>
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In list.freebsd-chat Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
> On Friday, 2 June 2000 at 20:00:20 +0200, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> > The French use << text >>, German has >>text<< or ,,text``.
>
> Well, ,,text''. But this is what you were complaining about earlier.
Sorry for nitpicking, but it's neither ,,text`` nor ,,text''.
Unfortunately, ISO-8859-1 does not contain the right character
(it looks like a comma rotated by 180°, i.e. shaped like the
digit 6). BTW, is there a way to obtain them in SGML/Docbook,
like “ and ” for English quotes?
When restricted to ISO-8859-1 (or even plain ASCII), it depends
on the font whether ,,text`` or ,,text'' comes visually closer
to the real thing. It seems that in most monospaced pixel
fonts (e.g. on terminals) the second variant looks better,
while the first one tends to be better when using high-res
proportional fonts. But this is just my observation, not a
rule.
Another possibility when restricted to ISO-8859-1 in German-
language texts is to use »these« quotes. Personally I like
them, but they're not available in plain ASCII, and I dislike
their approximation using >>these<< characters.
Regards
Oliver
PS: Just for the record, I use two spaces after periods in
monospaced text -- not because I believe in some rule or
standard, but just because I think it improves readability.
When writing things in TeX, I also prefer the default mode
(i.e. not \frenchspacing) for the same reason.
--
Oliver Fromme, Leibnizstr. 18/61, 38678 Clausthal, Germany
(Info: finger userinfo:olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de)
"In jedem Stück Kohle wartet ein Diamant auf seine Geburt"
(Terry Pratchett)
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