Apostrophe word list

María Ramos

I would go only for typewriter quotes. I think they don't deserve to be called "dumb". They are easy for metrics, they avoid the use of wrong quotation marks at the end and the beginning of a word, and they can be as beautiful as the curly ones. 

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

You make some good points. And if the apostrophe is curly that would be enough contrast. The only problem is cases where you can't tell if the quote is opening or closing.

Nick Shinn

Sorry if this has been addressed before, but why are there not separate Unicode points for apostrophe and right quote?

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

@Nick Shinn
There are. See the link I posted previously:
https://tedclancy.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/which-unicode-character-should-represent-the-english-apostrophe-and-why-the-unicode-committee-is-very-wrong/

U+0027: "Apostrophe", which is also used for a single "dumb" quote and the single prime/tick mark. To me this should generally be avoided.

U+2019: Single "smart" close quote. This one is fine.

U+02BC: The "modifier letter" apostrophe, which we should be using for any apostrophe.

Khaled Hosny

That blog post is mostly a software developer being frustrated that he can’t use regular expressions easily to match “don’t”.

Nick Shinn

Nonetheless, he does point out the major fail of “smart quote” apps that has entrenched <quoteleft> as the usage for an eliding (abbreviating) apostrophe at the beginning of words and numbers.

This has been going on for 20 years—isn’t there anything that can be done about it—does nobody care?

Would it make any difference if we all started including U+02BC in our fonts?

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

@Khaled Hosny I don't care about that guy's intentions. Mixing up quote and apostrophe code points is stupid.

@Nick Shinn Including U+02BC in our fonts is the absolute minimum.

Khaled Hosny

I don't care about that guy's intentions. Mixing up quote and apostrophe code points is stupid.

Surprise, writing is full of ambiguities.

Khaled Hosny

isn’t there anything that can be done about it

Not having an “(un)smart quotes” feature at all? If the user cares about proper quotes/apostrophe he will find a way to input the right characters, if he don’t then why bother trying to outsmart him?

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Managed ambiguity is awesome. Ambiguity that stabs you in the back, not so much.

People need guidance. That's basic humanity.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48413419@N00/30855829843/in/dateposted-public/

María Ramos

Hrant H. Papazian said:

You make some good points. And if the apostrophe is curly that would be enough contrast. The only problem is cases where you can't tell if the quote is opening or closing.

Could you give an example of one of those cases? Correct me if I am wrong, opening quotes go always before a word and closing ones after, without a space in between.

Nick Shinn

Today’s stupidity.
Ironically, smart enough to hang the mark.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

The worst thing is $200 high school senior "Class Of" jackets with that mistake...

@María Ramos I guess you're right, it's practically non-existent.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Must be the German version of Word...

Nick Shinn