Fancy and plain quotes

rogersgeorge on January 8th, 2010

Word processors have advanced a lot since I started out in computing (a 64K Color Computer, on which I taught myself BASIC). When you type a quotation mark, the big word processors figure out which direction to make the curly quotes.  Text editors and other simple word processors generally use the simpler straight quotes.

Aside: I am the proud owner of a pocket knife I inherited from my grandfather that has the word “Rajah” inscribed on it, and the closing quote is not an upside-down version of the opening quotes. It’s a mirror image, which is how they ought to be. That convention died out a long time ago when typographers eliminated a bin of punctuation marks by turning the opening marks over. Since they were doing it all by hand, I suppose I can’t blame them, but I still like mirror-image marks.

By convention nowadays, we use the curly quotes for quotation marks, and the straight quotes as an abbreviation for feet and inches. This is a useful distinction, but how do you get your word processor to make the straight ones when you need them?

Here’s something I just discovered:

In the latest version of MS Word, version 2007, you can get straight quotes by typing the quote key, then pressing the backspace key. The curly changes to straight. Slick; only one extra keystroke.

Have you discovered a handy shortcut for something you do when you write? Share!

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In the Bible or not?

rogersgeorge on January 7th, 2010

Lots of people like to quote the Bible. Unfortunately, lots of people like to quote some old saw and say it’s from the Bible. Now you certainly have permission to repeat old saws, but don’t betray your illiteracy by making the wrong attribution.
Here are a few aphorisms (fancy word for old saw) that lots of [...]

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loans and lending

rogersgeorge on December 4th, 2009

Lend—a verb. Something you do, possibly to regret later.
Loan—a noun. The loan is what you might or might not be repaid after you lend it to someone.
Do your lending carefully, and try to keep your loans affordable, in case they don’t pay back what you loaned them.

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Those little horizontal lines matter

rogersgeorge on November 18th, 2009

We commonly use three little horizontal lines in English: the hyphen, the N-dash, and the M-dash. Some people say we use hyphens and dashes, but I prefer the increased precision of saying two dashes. They’re named for how wide they are, by the way; the width of a capital N or a capital M.
Everybody knows [...]

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In which I rant on about hyphens

rogersgeorge on November 10th, 2009

Harrumpf! I’d expect a notable scientific  journal like the Daily Galaxy to get these things right. Especially after I so recently described how to do it. (I’m sure they read my missives regularly…)
When you have a phrase that’s used as an adjective, you hyphenate it. That way you know the first word in the phrase [...]

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