Hi Branden, On Wed, Dec 18, 2024 at 08:00:53PM -0600, G. Branden Robinson wrote: > Synopsis: > > .QS [suppress-initial-word-hyphenation?] > Begin quotation. An opening quotation mark is formatted. The > line is not broken. The optional argument is a Boolean value > (“0” or “1”) indicating whether automatic hyphenation of the > initial word should be suppressed. The default is “0”. > > .QE > End quotation. A closing quotation mark is formatted. The line > is not broken. > > Pro: > * People may discover that quotation marks are properly available in > the man(7) language, a fact that has been obscure for 45 years. (The > `\*(lq` and `\*(rq` syntax has been available since day one [1979]. I > suspect these failed because man page authors who weren't already > practiced in *roff had no idea what a *roff string was, or how to > interpolate one, and the elaborate syntax filled them with fear.)
I prefer \[lq] and \[rq] over .QS and .QE. BTW, that's that '*' mean?
> * A consequence of the above is that bold and italics may be abused
> for quotation purposes less, and since quotation marks will survive
> copy-and-paste operations, those operations will become more reliable
> for users. (This might slightly increase pressure on man page authors
> to ensure their examples are correct. Horrors.)
If you'd like to send some patches to the man-pages project for using
lq and rq to replace italics, I would welcome the change. However, I
don't remember having seen many quotes, from the top of my head.
> * People are going to reasonably want to suppress hyphenation sometimes
> in the first word in a quotation, because it will often be a
> programming language literal or similar. Chet Ramey (Bash maintainer)
> uncovered this requirement in less than a month, as I recall.
I prefer \% over a new boolean to a macro. Both are two bytes ("\%" vs
" 1"), and one is standard roff since forever. Plus \% is a generic
tool vs the boolean which a specific tool, and I tend to favour generic
ones.
For the same reason, I'm a defendant of cat(1) as a starter of a
pipeline, at least when typing interactively, even if it may be
considered a useless use of cat(1). It actually saves typing cat(1)
later when you find out you need sudo(8) for reading the file.
> At 2024-12-18T22:08:53+0100, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> > Hmmm, good reminder. The British are right on the quotes. Just like
> > their wall plugs are the best. A couple of things the British did
> > well.
>
> I agree that the British have the better punctuation placement
> convention. And yes, their consumer grade electrical interface is a
> marvel.
>
> I'm also interested to read this:
>
> https://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/book/british-rail/
>
> ...and last, but not least, they pronounce "status" more correctly than
> American English speakers (like me) are trained to.
>
> But now that I've conceded three things, I must pivot back. "PROE-cess"
> and "PROE-gress" are gauche. The Canadians, eternally trembling with
> fear of being mistaken for Yankees, seized these habits too. The
> post-American Revolution RP vowel shift is nonsense, an affectation of
> the posh, the very sort of people that the Monty Python troupe rightly
> mocked as twits.
>
> Not that Cockney (or its descendants) are any better. Worse, probably.
> Joe Strummer sounds like he should have gone up for the role of Simple
> Jack in _Tropic Thunder_. To hear good English in the U.K. I suspect
> you've simply got to get away from London. I was in Northern Ireland
> briefly (before Brexit). People were quite pleasantly intelligible
> there. Just as much as across the invisible, un-checkpointed national
> border, one of the most civilized things I've ever seen. Of course it
> had to come under threat. :(
I lived in Sligo town for half a year, and the day I arrived at the
country, I got into a taxi. I didn't know if the person I was talking
to was actually speaking English, or some Irish language. :D
With time, my ears got used to it, but OMG, it was hard the first days.
I like their accent and vocabulary very much now.
Have a lovely night!
Alex
>
> Regards,
> Branden
--
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
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