| | # History |
| | |
| | -Quotation marks trace back to Ancient Greek, later adopted to the |
| | -diplé (⸖) circa 625 BCE, and having a form that hints to the evolution of |
| | -its curve. By the seventeenth century, the punctuation mark grew common |
| | -and by the nineteenth century, Western Europe had turned the convexity of |
| | -quotation mark pairs outward. |
| | +Quotation marks trace back to Ancient Greek, later adopted to the diplé (⸖) |
| | +circa 625 BCE, foreshadowing its later curve. By the seventeenth century, |
| | +quotation marks grew common. During the nineteenth century, Western Europe |
| | +turned the convexity of quotation mark pairs outward. |
| | |
| | Early mechanical typewriters, circa 1825, lacked many punctuation marks. As |
| | technology improved, additional keys were added while some keys played dual |
| | roles (such as I for 1). Straight single and double quotes could be co-opted |
| | -for: quotation marks and apostrophes; feet and inches marks; and prime and |
| | -double-prime. There wasn't a pressing need to add curled versions. |
| | +for quotation marks and apostrophes, feet and inches marks, and primes and |
| | +double-primes. There wasn't a pressing need to type curled versions because |
| | +humans excel at understanding from context. |
| | |
| | Eventually straight quotes were codified for computers. Unfortunately, the |
| | apostrophe carried with it the baggage from typewriters. That is, burgeoning |
| | encoding standards failed to let users capture the nuances of the English |
| | language; computers forced users to treat the apostrophe as a straight quote. |
| | Standards bodies suggested using the right single quotation mark for an |
| | -apostrophe instead, but this loses its semantic meaning. As a consequence, |
| | -parsing English quotations, especially British English, is now riddled with |
| | -ambiguity. |
| | +apostrophe instead, shirking off its semantic meaning. Consequently, |
| | +text containing English quotations, especially British English, is now |
| | +riddled with ambiguity. |
| | |
| | -Consider the phrase: |
| | +Consider the sentence: |
| | |
| | > Ambiguity lurks in "'cause the horses'". |
| | |
| | Does `'cause` mean _because_ or _induce_? The answer determines whether |
| | an open left single quote is used or an apostrophe, semantically speaking. |
| | -It's amazing how decisions from 200 years ago still affect modern systems. |
| | +It's amazing how ancient decisions still affect modern systems. |
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