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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
it would seem that "inverted commas" is only half of the story; e.g.,
Quotation marks (Print.), two inverted commas placed at the beginning, and two apostrophes at the end, of a passage quoted from an author in his own words. [Webster's Revised Unabridged]
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>half of the story
Very interesting - how far back does that statement go?
I can believe that printers would have made use of the comma (inverted) and the apostrophe in the set of letters that they had for each font - there would have been no need for them to be duplicated.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 197
member
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member
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 197 |
>>>my father calls them "lip marks"<<<
My husband was showing me a neat computer trick yesterday and he told me to type a "back tick." He eventually had to show me that he meant the <`> key. I'm sure that's strictly IT terminology. I had certainly never heard it.
by the way, that character is the one that looks somewhat like a little 6. it doesn't show up very well.
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
troy mentioned While my daughter full well knows that sentences end in a period-- she uses the keyboard "dot" (so she has a dot key, which she uses to create a period.)I use my "dot" key to type a fullstop - period is one Americanism I'm still not comfortable with. I use it only under duress, when clarity of communication demands it. 
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
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>I use my "dot" key to type a fullstop That's funny, I use my full stop key to type a dot. I prefer not to discuss periods in mixed company, except if there is a medical context  . P.S. I was offered a really good deal on a TFT screen laptop today, only problem - it has an American keyboard (the £,@ and # are in the wrong places), no-one will buy it here!
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2000
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(the £,@ and # are in the wrong places)
And where, pray tell, are these characters on British keyboards? And is there any more need for the @ and # in the UK than in the US?
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
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Jo complained P.S. I was offered a really good deal on a TFT screen laptop today, only problem - it has an American keyboard (the £,@ and # are in the wrong places),
I sypmathise, Jo. Imagine the difficulties Shylock would have had with the plethora of international keyboards. When it came time to ask for his pound of flesh, he might have made a real hash of it!
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
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>And where, pray tell, are these characters on British keyboards? And is there any more need for the @ and # in the UK than in the US? I imagine the difference goes back to the early typewriters. I think the top row line up goes back as far as I remember. I used to get the ocassional ! for 1 when I first started typing. The additional keys must be more recent. The £ is above the 3 on a UK layout. Given that we also have the $ above 4, that means that the # (hash, as Max says) and @ keys are to the right of the asdf row, next to return. It goes: l/L, ;/:, '/@, #/~ with the shift key character shown second. I'm quite tempted by the bargain price (all it needs is a few stickers over the relevant keys) but I thought it would have made a good present for a homesick American living in the UK . A friend used my current keyboard recently and struggled over a few simple words. I hadn't noticed that several letters had completely worn away - too much AWADing!
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Joined: Dec 2000
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393 |
I've just got a new keyboard at work and haven't had it de-Americanized yet, so I have to remember that @ makes " and all that.
This set me wondering: where on earth did the hash # key come from? It had no use in typewriter days, did it? Presumably its use in computing is because it was there available on existing keyboards? But why? What was it? I've never seen it used in print in a pre-computing context.
(Yes, of course it can be colloquially read "number" as in #1, and legend has it it's an American pound sign, but I've only ever seen 2 lb, not 2#. Surely neither of these was common enough to get it on typewriter keyboards?)
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Joined: Mar 2000
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
he told me to type a "back tick." He eventually had to show me that he meant the <`> key
` for me would probably be a grave (pron: graav), from the variety of cute accents the French use. More's the pity that I only have the apostrophe to stand for the acute '. Old word processing programs used to give us the ability to superimpose one character on top of another so that I could recreate all those lovely accented characters without recourse to an ASCII code reference. Ah well.
Just to add to the thread - I'm probably completely with Jo on this one:
. is a full stop.
" " are inverted commas (though I use 'quotes' a great deal more these days).
' is an apostrophe, but only if it is being used to mark missing letters or possession.
And while the leyboard I'm currently using has a tilde ~ and a circumflex ^ (though a bit pointy), I can see no cedilla (sp. bel?). So much for the full range of French accents...
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