Bug: Secondary smart quotes are exported as apostrophes. [9.1.14 (9.1.14-1-g4931fc-elpa @ /home/coleman/.emacs.d/elpa/org-9.1.14/)]

Bug: Secondary smart quotes are exported as apostrophes. [9.1.14 (9.1.14-1-g4931fc-elpa @ /home/coleman/.emacs.d/elpa/org-9.1.14/)]

[Coleman Gariety]

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According to documentation (org-export-with-smart-quotes) should treat
"pairs of single quotes as secondary quotes." This text:

'foo'

Should be exported to HTML as:

‘foo’

However, org-mode 9.1.14 exports this text as:

’foo’

This does not occur when a secondary pair of quotations occurs within a
pair of primary quotations. This text:

"'foo'"

Gets exported (properly) as:

“‘foo’”

This also occurs when exporting to pdf, latex and odt.

I was able to get org to export smart quotes as expected by commenting
out line `5505` of `ox.el`:

5503 ;; Not already in a level 1 quote: this is an
5504 ;; apostrophe.
5505 ;; ((not level1-open) 'apostrophe)

Even with this line commented out, apostrophes are properly
exported. (Even within pairs of primary and secondary quotations.)

Is something wrong with my configuration? Or is there a problem with the
org-export--smart-quote-status function?

Thank you.
Coleman

Emacs  : GNU Emacs 26.1 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.22.30)
 of 2018-07-05
Package: Org mode version 9.1.14 (9.1.14-1-g4931fc-elpa @
/home/coleman/.emacs.d/elpa/org-9.1.14/)

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Re: Bug: Secondary smart quotes are exported as apostrophes. [9.1.14 (9.1.14-1-g4931fc-elpa @ /home/coleman/.emacs.d/elpa/org-9.1.14/)]

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Coleman Gariety <garietyc@reed.edu> writes:

> According to documentation (org-export-with-smart-quotes) should treat
> "pairs of single quotes as secondary quotes." This text:

Only within primary quotes! If there are no primary quotes around, you
don't need a second level of quotation, and single quotes are not
special.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Re: Bug: Secondary smart quotes are exported as apostrophes. [9.1.14 (9.1.14-1-g4931fc-elpa @ /home/coleman/.emacs.d/elpa/org-9.1.14/)]

[Coleman Gariety]

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Nicolas,

Thank you for your response. I now see that I had misunderstood the
documentation.

Also, it occurs to me that one can make use of single quotation marks as
primary quotes when mentioning a word without using it. Moreover, when
italics and double quotation marks are also present, the use of single
quotations as primary is necessary. For example:

'GNU' is an acronym for the phrase "GNU's Not Unix!" but GNU is an
> operating system and *not *an acronym.


Is it feasible to add an option to treat single quotation marks as primary
pairs on export?

Thanks,
Coleman Gariety

On Tue, Jan 1, 2019 at 7:46 AM Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Coleman Gariety <garietyc@reed.edu> writes:
>
> > According to documentation (org-export-with-smart-quotes) should treat
> > "pairs of single quotes as secondary quotes." This text:
>
> Only within primary quotes! If there are no primary quotes around, you
> don't need a second level of quotation, and single quotes are not
> special.
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Nicolas Goaziou
>

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Re: Bug: Secondary smart quotes are exported as apostrophes. [9.1.14 (9.1.14-1-g4931fc-elpa @ /home/coleman/.emacs.d/elpa/org-9.1.14/)]

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Coleman Gariety <garietyc@reed.edu> writes:

> Also, it occurs to me that one can make use of single quotation marks as
> primary quotes when mentioning a word without using it. Moreover, when
> italics and double quotation marks are also present, the use of single
> quotations as primary is necessary.
>
> For example:
>
> 'GNU' is an acronym for the phrase "GNU's Not Unix!" but GNU is an
> operating system and *not* an acronym.

When you need that level of precision, smart quotes are not for you.
"Smart" quotes are a dumb way to automate some basic typographic rules.
Clearly, this is not what you are after.

You can use entities directly to obtain the desired result, e.g. \rsquo,
\lsquo...

> Is it feasible to add an option to treat single quotation marks as primary
> pairs on export?

I think you are mixing up the level of quotation and the glyph used. You
can export "..." as single quotes by setting
`org-export-smart-quotes-alist' accordingly.


Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Re: Bug: Secondary smart quotes are exported as apostrophes. [9.1.14 (9.1.14-1-g4931fc-elpa @ /home/coleman/.emacs.d/elpa/org-9.1.14/)]

[Coleman Gariety]

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Nicolas,

Thank you for your response.

> When you need that level of precision, smart quotes are not for you.

I agree. However, in specialized fields (linguistics and philosophy, for
example), single quotation marks are commonly used to refer to technical
terms or specialized uses of words
<https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/31420/when-should-single-quotes-be-used#answer-31444>:
"Single
quotes are easier on the eyes when reading material that uses quotes
frequently, which is why academic publishers adopted this format for works
in these areas."

> You can use entities directly to obtain the desired result, e.g. \rsquo,
\lsquo...

I think that this is rather tedious. Do you agree? If so, it seems
reasonable to me that there should be some option to export text such as...

'foo'


...in the form of...

 &lsquo;foo&rsquo;


It occurs to me that an academic who works in the field of linguistics or
philosophy should be able to properly export his or her writing without
using cryptic glyphs ("...") or commenting out line `5545` of `ox.el`. Do
you agree?

Thank you for your time and your consideration.
Coleman

On Thu, Jan 3, 2019 at 3:21 AM Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Coleman Gariety <garietyc@reed.edu> writes:
>
> > Also, it occurs to me that one can make use of single quotation marks as
> > primary quotes when mentioning a word without using it. Moreover, when
> > italics and double quotation marks are also present, the use of single
> > quotations as primary is necessary.
> >
> > For example:
> >
> > 'GNU' is an acronym for the phrase "GNU's Not Unix!" but GNU is an
> > operating system and *not* an acronym.
>
> When you need that level of precision, smart quotes are not for you.
> "Smart" quotes are a dumb way to automate some basic typographic rules.
> Clearly, this is not what you are after.
>
> You can use entities directly to obtain the desired result, e.g. \rsquo,
> \lsquo...
>
> > Is it feasible to add an option to treat single quotation marks as
> primary
> > pairs on export?
>
> I think you are mixing up the level of quotation and the glyph used. You
> can export "..." as single quotes by setting
> `org-export-smart-quotes-alist' accordingly.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Nicolas Goaziou
>

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Re: Bug: Secondary smart quotes are exported as apostrophes. [9.1.14 (9.1.14-1-g4931fc-elpa @ /home/coleman/.emacs.d/elpa/org-9.1.14/)]

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Coleman Gariety <garietyc@reed.edu> writes:

> I agree. However, in specialized fields (linguistics and philosophy, for
> example), single quotation marks are commonly used to refer to technical
> terms or specialized uses of words
> <https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/31420/when-should-single-quotes-be-used#answer-31444>:
> "Single
> quotes are easier on the eyes when reading material that uses quotes
> frequently, which is why academic publishers adopted this format for works
> in these areas."

As you put it: "in specialized fields", which is exactly my point. Smart
quotes, as implemented in Org, are not up to the requirements of
specialized fields. This is no LaTeX.

>> You can use entities directly to obtain the desired result, e.g. \rsquo,
> \lsquo...
>
> I think that this is rather tedious. Do you agree?

It depends on the number of occurrences. With completion, it can be
quick to insert.

> If so, it seems reasonable to me that there should be some option to
> export text such as...
>
> 'foo'
>
>
> ...in the form of...
>
>  &lsquo;foo&rsquo;

You may write an export filter for that.

> It occurs to me that an academic who works in the field of linguistics or
> philosophy should be able to properly export his or her writing without
> using cryptic glyphs ("...") or commenting out line `5545` of `ox.el`. Do
> you agree?

I think cryptic (?) double quotes are perfectly fine since you can
export them as single quotes in the end. And I do not understand your
reference to line 5545 in "ox.el".

Despite its lacks, current implementation of smart quotes does its —
limited — job. I understand that it does not fulfill anyone's needs.

Now, if you think you have a better design for them, please share it
here. If it is sound and you are willing to implement it, I'm sure Org
users will appreciate it.

However, please make sure you explain the design from the ground up, not
as a modification of the current system, even if the implementation
ultimately is a slight modification of the latter. This is important to
avoid introducing a misunderstanding of the current system in the
process. 

In particular, you may note that current system does not use "double
quotes" and "single quotes", but "primary quotes" and "secondary
quotes". This is an important distinction, as it is more general: some
languages do not use, e.g., single quotes at all. It just happens that
Org uses double quotes as primary quotes, but only as a class of
characters, not as a literal symbol. As a consequence, as odd as it may
sound, I would consider it a regression if Org exported " as double
quotes and ' as single quotes exclusively.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou