Angled quotesingle and quotedbl

Nick Shinn
Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
in Font Technology


I put angled quotesingle and quotedbl in a proprietary typeface, making sure the client approved that, but have followed convention otherwise.

However, perhaps I should make all my “stupid” quote marks angled in future—after all, that is what my Mac keyboard is indicating.

What do you think?


Comments

  • Florian Pircher
    Florian Pircher Posts: 176
    edited February 2021
    Ah, interesting; the English Mac keyboard layout has a dedicated quotes key, today I learned! My guess as to why the quotes are slightly angled is that the key may produce straight quotes or (using modifier keys) produce smart/angled/curly quotes, so having the picture on the key represent both forms (the picture is not curly/modulated and it’s not straight either) makes the key more universal. Perhaps far-fetched, but it makes sense to me. Evidently I need to update my Mac keyboard knowledge.

    Regarding angled forms for “stupid” quotes: I mentioned liking it in Quadraat Sans Mono in the other thread, but for a text typeface I would stick to the convention of leaving them vertical. If a client requests it or agrees to it, then I see no problem breaking convention. Especially display typefaces look dull when using vertical lines (as the first line in your illustration above).
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
    edited February 2021
    The North American Mac keyboard has had curly quotes accessible via the bracket/brace keys for 30+ years—presumably because they are left/right, which has mnemonic value.
  • Florian Pircher
    Florian Pircher Posts: 176
    Mnemonics can come at a cost. On my German Mac keyboard ‹ is ⌥⇧B and › is ⌥⇧N where the standard formatting of ‹…› corresponds to the left/right placement of B/N on the keyboard. But in German, the quotes are used pointing inwards (›…‹) so I have to press the right key to open and the left key to close. I trip up every time, even while very carefully writing this comment. » and « I find easier to get right, where » is ⌥⇧Q  and « is ⌥Q (still not-corresponding to German ordering, but at least there is no spacial confusion). In the case of “…”, however, I agree that the second mapping is better.

    Funny that it takes a Windows user to get the Mac quote shortcuts right ;‌)
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
    Yes John—I’m still struggling with getting the correct quote mark after those 30+ years.
    No doubt because I still foolishly expect a mnemonic significance!
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    I might be in the minority, but I never get the smart quote keys mixed up on the Mac keyboard. Maybe because I've typing them since 1984, before automatic substitution with smart quotes was a thing. But if you ask me say which is which, it'd be a bit like saying which shoe I put on first. I have to stop and an think for a moment.
  • Cristóbal Henestrosa
    Cristóbal Henestrosa Posts: 75
    edited February 2021
    In my Spanish - ISO keyboard, 
    ⌥8 = “
    ⌥9 = ”
    ⌥⇧8 = ‘
    ⌥⇧9 = ’
    ⌥⇧{  = «
    ⌥⇧} = »
    ⌥⇧z = ‹
    ⌥⇧x = ›
    Pretty easy, I think.
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
    There’s space on the Mac bracket/brace keys to help out people like me.
    (I wouldn’t advise it for the other keys, things would get awfully busy.)

     
  • André G. Isaak
    André G. Isaak Posts: 634
    Mark Simonson said:
    I might be in the minority, but I never get the smart quote keys mixed up on the Mac keyboard. Maybe because I've typing them since 1984, before automatic substitution with smart quotes was a thing. But if you ask me say which is which, it'd be a bit like saying which shoe I put on first. I have to stop and an think for a moment.
    I, too, don't have problems with these. While I've also been typing them since '84, I suspect the more significant reason is that the first thing I do when I install new software is to turn off absolutely anything involving so-called "smart" anything. I hate software which thinks it knows what I intended to type better than I do.
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    I loath to repeat myself, but we all need completely new keyboards.
  • Helmut Wollmersdorfer
    Helmut Wollmersdorfer Posts: 212
    edited February 2021
    I built my own virtual keyboard on Mac using Ukulele for writing German Fraktur. The special characters are on plane shift+ctrl+alt.

    The German quotes in Fraktur are of shape low-9 (begin) and high-6 (end).

    $ uni identify '„“'
     cpoint  name
'„'  U+201E  DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK (Open_Punctuation)
'“'  U+201C  LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK (Initial_Punctuation)


    For proofreading I compile an on-screen char-picker with the used or needed special characters, e.g. for newspapers 1850-1910:


  • Claudio Piccinini
    Claudio Piccinini Posts: 681
    On the italian keyboard it’s:

    option-1 = «
    option-shift-1 = »
    option-2 = “
    option-shift-2 = ”
    option-3 = ‘
    option-shift-3 = ’
    ' = '
    shift+2 = "

    I always loved that, but then Apple became too fashionable for mere mortals. :-)
  • Claudio Piccinini
    Claudio Piccinini Posts: 681
    P.S. I like the typewriter quotes: they offer an additional choice, more "machine-legacy" oriented.
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216

    This is what bugs me. I tried to design <quotesingle> to match the style of the typeface, but it still looks so wrong. And this is the typical North American usage of <quotesingle>, not as a quote mark. But the market is international, so I did not make this character look like a proper apostrophe. Angled monolinear <quotesingle> would still offend my sensibilities. Ideally, I would like to be able to use <locl> for a specific North American variant of <quotesingle>, that looks like a comma.
  • Adam Jagosz
    Adam Jagosz Posts: 689
    While we're at it, is there even a reason for the existence of the straight quote other than the need for a neutral quote sign that "can be used" in any language on either side of the word? If we lived in a typographically perfect world, would we even need the so-called dumb quotes? (This is a question I tried to ask in a very roundabout way here).
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,231
    Straight quotes originated on typewriters, where it meant a single key could be used for opening and closing quotes, minutes and seconds, and feet and inches. And that is still how most people type, and hence why handling of proper quote marks is punted to a higher level layout behaviour. Personally, I like Nick’s suggestion to angle them, at least in a low contrast design. This become more problematic if the shapes are tapered, because they won’t read so well as an opening quote.
  • Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian
    Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian Posts: 2,044
    (Just injecting a straight-quote joke, don't mind me.)

  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
    Typedrawers on Daily Wire’s radar? A post today:


  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    edited February 2021
    @Adam Jagosz reason for the existence of the straight quote
    As @John Hudson said, it goes back to the typewriter. But the link between typewriters and modern computers is the teletype keyboard, which led to typewriter quotes becoming part of ASCII.

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