On Tue, May 06, 2008 at 05:47:36PM -0500, Kevin Buhr wrote: > "Douglas A. Tutty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > What gets me is when a man page is written in english and "'" gets > > translated as "?", as in can?t or "'" is a square white blob (on a > > regular VT). Why couldn't whoever wrote it in english have used the > > standard english "'" glyph instead of a UTF thingy? > > The problem isn't the manpage author, it's your setup. > > Specifically, you're using a locale that sports UTF-8 encoding, but wrong. Lang=C. I don't have any locales installed. This is regular stock VT (no fonts, etc). > you're using a terminal/font combination that is not capable of > correctly rendering UTF-8-encoded common typographical symbols used > for English language text, like the right single quote / apostrophe.
The apostrophe is in standard ASCII in "C". > If you use a locale based on ASCII encoding instead, those manpages > will render more correctly (for example, substituting the unsightly > ASCII vertical apostrophe for its more urbane cousin or writing (C) in > place of the copyright symbol). See the bottom of this post if LANG=C > isn't good enough for you. > Already using LANG=C > Unlike some people here, I couldn't give a ???? if you, S. Keeling, or > anyone else wants to use UTF-8 or not---I'm not on any crusade---but > an environment variable setting of "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" is basically an > announcement to applications that your terminal is UTF-8 capable. You > don't have to run a UTF-8-capable terminal if you don't want to, but > you shouldn't lie to your applications and then whine about those damn > foreigners writing manpages incorrectly (just a joke, just a joke). > > In truth, if you look at the manpage source, you'll probably find that > the manpage authors *have* used the ASCII "'" character for > apostrophes and right single quotes. That's because this is the > encoding convention used in the typesetting language "roff" in which > manpages are written. You write `stuff like this' knowing that a > correctly configured manpage rendering pipeline will convert those > ASCII backticks and apostrophes into the correct English typographical > symbols (if the manpage is being printed or being displayed on a > sophisticated terminal) or at least do the best it can (if it's being > delivered to an ASCII-only terminal). If manpage writers were really > on the ball, they'd use \(lqleft and right double-quotes\(rq too, but > you don't see too much of that. > > To clarify further, there's nothing English about "'". If it's > anything, it's ASCII, not English. I'm not sure that the ASCII > standard actually specifies what printable characters, including "'", > are supposed to look like, but in most fonts with ASCII-compatible > encoding, the "'" character is rendered as an undirected, > typewriter-style apostrophe, like a vertical tickmark, and I believe > this is pretty much universally accepted as the "correct" rendering of > this character, among those who care about these things. In > particular, it is *not* the character used in typeset English text as > an apostrophe or right single quote. It's rarely used in English text > at all, except in historically ASCII contents like email and computer > plain text files. It's about as un-English as you can get. It's very > ASCII, though. According to man ascii, its ascii code decimal 27. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
