Re: Bug#235759: Comentar on which replacement for German quotes
GOTO Masanori wrote:
> At Mon, 29 Mar 2004 04:23:37 -0500,
> Nathanael Nerode wrote:
>> > as a German native speaker with some interest on typography but
>> > virtually no knowledge on UTF-8 some comments:
>> >
>> > The common quotes in German today are
>> > double open quotes (low position) U201E
>> > together with
>> > double closed quote (high position) U201C
>> >
>> > The current conversion
>> > ,,text"
>> > looks strange because the opening quotes don't match the closing
>> > quotes.
>> I would make an effort to avoid any conversion which is asymmetrical in
>> length, for any language, actually. I hate when info documents say
>> ``foo", for instance...
>
> So are ,,text'' and ``foo'' reasonable?
Well, although I said "no", I admit that they are better than ,,text" and
``foo", because they don't have the asymmetry...
They are unreasonable, however, for *different* reasons. In English, "foo"
should be used when curly quotes are unavailable, not ``foo''. ("`" and "'"
make a crummy pair of quotes, even though TeX uses them.)
In German, >>foo<< (or was it <> ?) should be used when the curly
quotes are unavailable (using real guillemets, not greater-than and
less-than signs), as all the Germans were saying. ,,text'' might be
reasonable if the guillemets aren't available, but >>foo<< (or was it
<>?) might be better because it's less likely to be confusing -- and
"foo" might be the best of all, because it's almost certainly not
confusing.
The point is that retaining meaning should take priority over retaining
appearance. The current conversions attempt to retain a sort of parody of
the appearance, but are worse at retaining meaning than the alternative
suggested conversions. Imagine if the default conversion for kanji and kana
was ASCII art, and you'll get an idea of why the current conversion just
seems wrong (though it isn't *that* bad).
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Re: Bug#235759: Comentar on which replacement for German quotes
On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 11:36:25PM +0900, GOTO Masanori wrote: > At Mon, 29 Mar 2004 04:23:37 -0500, > Nathanael Nerode wrote: > > > as a German native speaker with some interest on typography but > > > virtually no knowledge on UTF-8 some comments: > > > > > > The common quotes in German today are > > > double open quotes (low position) U201E > > > together with > > > double closed quote (high position) U201C > > > > > > The current conversion > > > ,,text" > > > looks strange because the opening quotes don't match the closing > > > quotes. > > I would make an effort to avoid any conversion which is asymmetrical in > > length, for any language, actually. I hate when info documents say ``foo", > > for instance... > > So are ,,text'' and ``foo'' reasonable? There is already a patch in http://lists.debian.org/debian-glibc-0403/msg00177.html If it gets rejected, could you please explain why? Denis -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#235759: Comentar on which replacement for German quotes
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 GOTO Masanori wrote: | At Mon, 29 Mar 2004 04:23:37 -0500, | Nathanael Nerode wrote: | |>>as a German native speaker with some interest on typography but |>>virtually no knowledge on UTF-8 some comments: |>> |>>The common quotes in German today are |>> double open quotes (low position) U201E |>>together with |>> double closed quote (high position) U201C |>> |>>The current conversion |>> ,,text" |>>looks strange because the opening quotes don't match the closing |>>quotes. |> |>I would make an effort to avoid any conversion which is asymmetrical in |>length, for any language, actually. I hate when info documents say ``foo", |>for instance... | | | So are ,,text'' and ``foo'' reasonable? In my opinion? No. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFAbfujRGZ0aC4lkIIRAjt5AJ0bG/LTIk8KtBkFQ/foTxVMbhBYiQCfb57J lv4D4mYi4UZFsD2wmwGFy/c= =SnXW -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Bug#235759: Comentar on which replacement for German quotes
GOTO Masanori wrote: > At Mon, 29 Mar 2004 04:23:37 -0500, > Nathanael Nerode wrote: > > > as a German native speaker with some interest on typography but > > > virtually no knowledge on UTF-8 some comments: > > > > > > The common quotes in German today are > > > double open quotes (low position) U201E > > > together with > > > double closed quote (high position) U201C > > > > > > The current conversion > > > ,,text" > > > looks strange because the opening quotes don't match the closing > > > quotes. > > > > I would make an effort to avoid any conversion which is asymmetrical > > in length, for any language, actually. I hate when info documents > > say ``foo", for instance... > > So are ,,text'' and ``foo'' reasonable? ,,foo'' might be somewhat reasonable. ``foo'' is non-sense, as it's neither correct German syntax, nor elegant. Why not just use "foo"? It's not exactly correct German syntax either, but I'm pretty sure every German linguistics expert who has an understanding of character sets will agree that "foo" is way better than ,,foo'' or even ``foo''. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#235759: Comentar on which replacement for German quotes
At Mon, 29 Mar 2004 04:23:37 -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > > as a German native speaker with some interest on typography but > > virtually no knowledge on UTF-8 some comments: > > > > The common quotes in German today are > > double open quotes (low position) U201E > > together with > > double closed quote (high position) U201C > > > > The current conversion > > ,,text" > > looks strange because the opening quotes don't match the closing > > quotes. > I would make an effort to avoid any conversion which is asymmetrical in > length, for any language, actually. I hate when info documents say ``foo", > for instance... So are ,,text'' and ``foo'' reasonable? Regards, -- gotom -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#235759: Comentar on which replacement for German quotes
Adrian Bunk wrote: > Hi, > > as a German native speaker with some interest on typography but > virtually no knowledge on UTF-8 some comments: > > The common quotes in German today are > double open quotes (low position) U201E > together with > double closed quote (high position) U201C > > The current conversion > ,,text" > looks strange because the opening quotes don't match the closing > quotes. I would make an effort to avoid any conversion which is asymmetrical in length, for any language, actually. I hate when info documents say ``foo", for instance... > French quotes are relatively uncommon in today's German. > If you use them, you also have to be aware that in Swiss German the > French closed quotes are used as opening quotes and vice versa. Books still seem to be published with the >> << quotes, some of the time anyway, though I don't think I've seen them in any less formal writing. Just a data point. ;-) > Intuitively, I'd have used the English quotes if German quotes are not > available. > > I am a bit surprised that this discussion and all patches sent only > cover de_DE, although there are altogether three common de_ locales > plus two others the locales package supports. > If you fix this issue, it should be properly fixed for all de_ locales. > > cu > Adrian > -- Make sure your vote will count. http://www.verifiedvoting.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
