Many people seem to use single-quotes where they arguably should use double-quotes. (That is, since there are no inner quotes, it's just convenient for them to use the apostrophe as quotes indicators.) ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Bell" <george@xxxxxxxxxx> To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 5:59 AM Subject: [duxuser] Re: single quotes and apostrophes Hi all, I'm now in Westford at Duxbury's offices, and having just got a new lap top, I don't have access to my office system just yet. For another list, I did write a lengthy explanation of the history of ASCII and ANSI character sets. I will try to post that when I get back to the U.K. All I will say in the meantime is that I'm personally sorry to say that the Braille world has not yet caught up with the computerised world we are seeing today. For example, in days gone by, there was and opening and closing quote which looked like a 66 and 99, but small, and raised above the text - referred to as "superscript" TODAY, we use ONE key on our keyboards for "Double quotes", be they opening or closing. Likewise, a single quote is now one key and character. And it is also used for the apostrophe. How I, as a sighted person involved in Braille, wish that Braille could be brought up to date, certainly in terms of day to day text. I see absolutely no confusion here. An opening single quote is always preceded by a space or followed by a space, so it cannot really be confused with an apostrophe which ALWAYS has a letter or character immediately before and immediately after it. By this reasoning, if "Smartquotes" appear, it would make more sense to convert them to the equivalents of the keys used in computers. Just two Braille symbols. George. -----Original Message----- >From: duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dale Leavens Sent: 29 April 2003 21:38 To: duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Terry, The symbols do look the same. I am unaware of any computer keyboard capable of creating the single quote. This is really a fairly new construct as typewriters don't include it either. I do not recall learning the correct usage of the single quote at any time during my English grammar or literature education but this may well reflect a poor education. It is interesting that you do not get the ~ character (tilde) when you cut your text to DBT. This is what I always get with that symbol. Though off topic I am interested to know when one is actually supposed to use the single quote character. I do not recall running into it even in braille transcribed by RNIB or APH. Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario dleavens@xxxxxxx Home of the Polar Bear Express! ----- Original Message ----- >From: "Terri Pannett" <pann1@xxxxxxxxx> To: "duxuser" <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 2:50 PM Subject: [duxuser] single quotes and apostrophes Dear List, I thought it would be best to change the subject line. The situation of the wrong symbol being used is really a pain in the neck, especially if you're reading text in a program. I just recently got the Windows version of the Online Bible. Every time I look up a passage, all the words in the passage which should have apostrophes contain single quotes. This means my fingers run over two cells of wrong braille and WindowEyes will read the word wrong, too. There's no way to correct things if a program sets up the text wrong. The "smart-tag" explanation explains the reason why I see single quotes where I should see apostrophes, but the problem isn't solved. Now, I have discovered if I copy a passage of Scripture to the Windows clipboard and read the text using DBT, all these nasty single quotes are stripped. The apostrophes are still missing, but the single quotes are missing, too. I think I can handle not seeing single quotes and apostrophes better than seeing single quotes where there should be apostrophes. In the DOS version of the same program, the opposite is true: single quotes appear as apostrophes. I went nuts with that, too, but if I've got to see a wrong sign, let it be a one-cell sign, not a two-cell sign. I gather that there are two different Ansi values for both symbols, so perhaps DBT could be programmed so when it recognizes the Ansi value of the symbol for apostrophe, it will translate it as dot 3; and when it sees the Ansi symbol for single quote, it will recognize it as the single quote and translate the symbols as the two-cell sign. Perhaps there could be an option so a person could "strip" out all the symbols represented by the "smart-tags". I have a PC keyboard which doesn't have a special key for the single quote--I have to use the grave accent key to make a correct braille single quote sign. But my BrailleNote does have a special key for single quotes. I'm wondering if there are PC keyboards which have the special key included in them? I'm also wondering if it bothers sighted people to see the wrong symbol, or does the single quote in print look like the apostrophe? Perhaps the rules in the U.S. and U.K. could be changed so both single quotes and apostrophes are represented in braille as dot 3. I guess some of you might think I'm nuts, but there GOT to be a solution to this problem and it's not going to come from either Microsoft or Corel. (In fact, DBT doesn't like the so-called "rtf" files so I have to convert such files to plain Ansi when I copy passages of Scripture to the clipboard.) Perhaps someone has a better idea than any I have proposed. Terri Amateur Radio call sign KF6CA. Army MARS call sign AAT9PX, California * * * * This message is via list duxuser at freelists.org. * To unsubscribe, send a blank message with * unsubscribe * as the subject to <duxuser-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>. You may also * subscribe, unsubscribe, and set vacation mode and other subscription * options by visiting //www.freelists.org. The list archive * is also located there. * Duxbury Systems' web site is http://www.duxburysystems.com * * * * * * * This message is via list duxuser at freelists.org. * To unsubscribe, send a blank message with * unsubscribe * as the subject to <duxuser-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>. You may also * subscribe, unsubscribe, and set vacation mode and other subscription * options by visiting //www.freelists.org. The list archive * is also located there. * Duxbury Systems' web site is http://www.duxburysystems.com * * * * * * * This message is via list duxuser at freelists.org. * To unsubscribe, send a blank message with * unsubscribe * as the subject to <duxuser-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>. You may also * subscribe, unsubscribe, and set vacation mode and other subscription * options by visiting //www.freelists.org. The list archive * is also located there. * Duxbury Systems' web site is http://www.duxburysystems.com * * * * * * * This message is via list duxuser at freelists.org. * To unsubscribe, send a blank message with * unsubscribe * as the subject to <duxuser-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>. You may also * subscribe, unsubscribe, and set vacation mode and other subscription * options by visiting //www.freelists.org. The list archive * is also located there. * Duxbury Systems' web site is http://www.duxburysystems.com * * *