Re: "Smart" quotes

[Nicolas Goaziou <n.goaziou@gmail.com>]

Hello,

"Mark E. Shoulson" <mark@kli.org> writes:

> Maybe, if it's all on one line.  But if the quote is several lines
> long, can you sensibly count the levels?

Well, yes.

> I guess it doesn't actually matter, but it starts to get weird if you
> find yourself looking arbitrarily far back, and then you start
> building in exceptions for crossing paragraph boundaries...

True. I had the exporter in mind, where you always start at the
beginning of the paragraph. It would be more difficult with search
starting in the middle of the paragraph.

> And then there's the fact that multi-paragraph quotes usually have an
> open-quote for each paragraph but only one close-quote at the end...

Some french typographers suggest to use a close-quote at the beginning
of the paragraph to avoid that confusion, or to simply drop them (since
they are a pain to maintain anyway). I don't know about other languages
but, if that's the same, is it a good idea to bother implementing it?

> Actually keeping count of what level you're at, accurately, is
> a classic example of a non-regular language; you need a push-down
> automaton to keep count, and regular expressions don't cut it.

This is limited to 2 levels.

> I'm rambling.  In sum, I'm going to start off /not/ trying to solve
> that problem, and assume the writer is going to use alternating " and
> as typography requires and not try to second-guess what level we're
> at.

You are right, the problem will be easier to solve with both " and '.

Though, "as typography requires" is not true. In France, the /Imprimerie
Nationale/ suggests to use guillemots at both levels. Remember that
typography is localized, which is the main difficulty of the
implementation.


Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou