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I was phoned by a confused programmer on Friday (and one of our more literate ones) who asked me the question "Why do we call them 'single quotes' rather than 'apostrophe'?"
Apart from the fact that it's easier to spell and say, I had no answer for her. She was looking for a cat to kick because she'd just been pinged by a client for using "single quote" when she was getting him to type in a command line at the DOS prompt on his computer, a conversation which was being held over the phone. She found me.
Is this just an IT thing, or is the use of "single quote" becoming more prevalent as a substitute for apostrophe, is it used only to distinguish between the use of <"> and <'> in quotes, and do any of you have any idea when it first came to be used? I couldn't google a damned thing about it!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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To add to your dilemma, may I enquire: What ever happened to the simple "inverted comma"? 
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Please don't - add to the dilemma, I mean. 
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Please don't - add to the dilemma Rubbing hands together and chortling with glee :  Then there is the 'okina denoting a glottal stop in the Hawaiian language! wow
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Go chortle quietly in the corner. That one's not even English! 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Since when is this board limited to English ? Hmmmmm? meanwhile, chortling quietly in corner as ordered. wow
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In an attempt to salvage the original subject of this thread for Kiwi:
I think there is a true difference between a single quote and an apostrophe. The apostrophe is just the name for the mark in I'm. (It's also talking to an inanimate object, but we won't get into that usage.) The single quote is the name for the marks used for a quote within a quote. The two uses have probably just become confused now because they are the same key on the keyboard.
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Pooh-Bah
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>In an attempt to salvage ...
How kind!
I'd never call the ' in "I'd" a single quote. I'd call it an apostrophe. If I were to say "hi" then I would use inverted commas, generally double but single if required, never "quotes". I get annoyed when word processing software offers "smart quotes", rather than "smart inverted commas", more creeping globalisation! [/rant]
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pardon me for asking Yet Another Stoopid Question, Jo, but how did "quotation marks" become "inverted commas"??
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Pooh-Bah
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>pardon me for asking Yet Another Stoopid Question, Jo, but how did "quotation marks" become "inverted commas"??
Ah that would be the rule of sixes. When I was six it was a word that I was taught so therefore it was correct and had existed forever. When you were six you may have been lead to believe something else and therein lies the problem.
The short answer is "search me". I've googled and all the rather eminent sites (newspapers and academia) that use the term are .uk or .au sites, so it must be a regional variation.
You could always seek out:
Burt, Warren. "Drones 1994 #2 - Old Commas Inverted and Revisited", Xenharmonikôn vol. 16, autumn 1995, p. 99 & 103 (score).
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In defense of Jo, I was also taught that quotes and inverted commas were the same thing and that the terms were interchangeable. My problem is that I cannot remember what I used to call the single quote. As a printer, I must have used some descriptive term, but only single quote comes to mind. Perhaps the use of both "single quote" and "apostrophe" is acceptable depending on context - ie where it is being used for a contraction or to denote possession it's called an apostrophe, but if it's being used to deliniate a quoted passage it's called a single quote. Would this seem a reasonable approach?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Capital Kiwi asked Would this seem a reasonable approach?
Eminently, IMHO. Your diplomatic approach, coupled with your city of residence, prompted a question for the rest of the Board members. Here in NZ, the registration plates of vehicles attached to embassies begin with DC - Diplomatic Corps. I had always thought that the international standard was to use CD - Corps Diplomatique. Is NZ alone in abandoning this pretentious use of French, or am I, once again, lycanthropically barking up the wrong tree?
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I, once again, lycanthropically barking up the wrong tree
A wolf in sheep's clothing! I might have guessed! Ow-ooo!
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No, no, it's a sheep in wolf's clothing we have in Max. Can answer this one (since I used to work for the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and asked the same question). When it was decided to standardise dip. corps plates, it was too late to use "CD", since it was already being used by up to 10,000 NZers. "DC" was the next best thing which was available. Simple as that, really. This is not exactly a showstopper in any way shape or form. The real danger lies in(side) cars with "CR" plates ... 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Capital Kiwi suggested that The real danger lies in(side) cars with "CR" plates No argument there, though it is a cool little icon, better than a boring alphanumeric combination. Thanks for the explanation on DC by the way, we seem to have a surprising number come up this way, popping in to catch up with Terence O'Brien perhaps. Either that, or to get blotto on HB wine and laugh at PC plod when he tries to nick them.
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>Perhaps the use of both "single quote" and "apostrophe" ...
“a” ‘a’ a’ a'
I got the fist three variations shown above by using MS Word (it adjusted the marks in automatically, based on context) and the last by typing directly in this software. I would have thought that in a proper printing font the ‘ and ’ would be different but before word processors replaced typewriters the ' and ' would have come from the same key stroke on the keyboard as the apostrophe.
By the way, just to add more complication - my father calls them "lip marks"!
Foot Note: Mmmmm - That lost a little in translation, the edit post screen allows in " and " to be different when copied in from Word but it all gets "smoothed out" back to looking the same at the preview stage - I give up!
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Someone, way back there, asked "When did quotes become inverted commas?" Well they never did - the question is when did "inverted commas" ( which I am almost certain is a typographers phrase, back in the old, cold-lead days of printing) become "quotes?" I don't know the date, but in my youth - last century, not the one before! - the term "inverted commas" began to be supplanted by "quotation marks," a phrase which became more and more usual and, inevitably, became shortened to "quotes." Jo is quite right in supposing that the initial and terminal marks were different - mirror images of each other, in fact. Limited space on a typewriter put paid to that and a unified, all-purpose quotation mark was accepted. Indeed, it could well be that it was the typewritten version - patently not a "comma" of any sort, but just a short, superscripted line - gave rise to the expression. That's just a guess, based on my vast knowedge and backed by my vaster intellect, and offered in all modesty 
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Yes, Rhu, that sounds right--
I also find that old folk, like me, who learned touch typing back in typewriting days, think and use the keyboard different than youngsters--like my kids--
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 read .com, .org as dot com, dot org, and will express DOS commands as dot and double dot : but i use the period key and the colon key to make my dots..
How did quote marks look different in before mechacal printing presses? did an inverted comma, or pair of inverted comma's come to be used for some other notation? and then did hand writing follow this new style (maybe it was easier, or clearer?)
It's just some technology words are very old-- cams and cogs and even clutches where used in water mills, punch cards in looms.. I seen some text and articles about alphabets, and how the shapes of letters have changed, but never anything on the finer detail of punctuation marks.
Presumably, latin used fewer-- since work ending helped to fix meaning.. (but i am just guessing..no real knowledge of latin.)
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of troy asks how Latin used punctuation marks
I think that in general they didn't use punctuation marks, at least not during the empire and before.
As for the quote marks the open quotes looked like little 6s and close quotes looked like little 9s. You'll still see some like that in some typefaces in modern printing.
Did I get that right?
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>As for the quote marks the open quotes looked like little 6s and close quotes looked like little 9s. You'll still see some like that in some typefaces in modern printing.
Did I get that right?
Yep - exactly what I was trying to say - even sans serif fonts like Arial have them, although they are more pronounced in serif fonts.
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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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>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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>>>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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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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>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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(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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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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>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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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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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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NicholasW asks: where on earth did the hash # key come from?
I'm not sure it was on old typewriter keyboards. I have at home an old typewriter that brings up images of archie scurrying about the keys. I'll check it out.
I think the computer keyboard owes more to the teletype than to the typewriter. The 1 key did not exist on the typewriter keyboard; we made do with a lowercase l. It was necessary on the teletype to avoid misunderstanding in context poor situations. The # key was undoubtedly necessary for similar reasons.
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I have at home an old typewriter that brings up images of archie scurrying about the keysarchy? Can't remember ever seeing a # key during all my nightly head-bangings on the manual all those years ago...
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To add to the confusion : I checked all the typewriters to which I have access and all have the # over the three (3). All made for US market. I called the # a pound sign having learned that nomenclature in first grade (age six ) but when I studied music it became ingrained as a SHARP. Now it irks  to hear "pound sign" when on one of those awful "press now" telephone thingamies. That language guy who writes for The New York Times ...Safire, I just remembered....wrote a terrific piece on the dot/period collision. I am a very basic user and never have any luck on searches but if someone could find that essay of Safire's it would be a boon. Now....let's see...What was the question ? wow
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In reply to:
Archy
As in Archy and Mehitabel, the creations of Don Marquis, quid vide by all means -- you'll enjoy it.
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> where on earth did the hash # key come from? It had no use in typewriter days, did it?
What you call the hash key (#) is actually a proofreading mark, and represents a space. In the US, we also call it the pound sign. When I was a young lad (more than a couple of months ago!) I learned in elementary school to use the # sign for pounds (as in weight, not money.) And there was a difference if we used it ahead of the number rather than after it. 30# was an abbreviation for 2 stones 2 pounds, but #30 was something else, and for the life of me I cannot remember. It may have meant "number" but I can't figure out a context where that would be necessary. Got to thinking about it. #1 was a shortcut for "number one" so #30 would mean "number 30" in a list of 30 or more items.
Interestingly, my at-work dictionary does not give anything for hash as a mark like #, and says that hash mark is a slang for a service stripe on a military member's sleeve. In our military I believe only the Navy uses them to indicate years of service, with each hash makr representing five years of service.
TEd
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By all means if you don't know anything about them check it out: http://www.batteiger.com/archy/
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In reply to:
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/safire/safire00.html
Well, that's dashed the last tattered illusions I had about my standards of literacy! I have already found myself consciously working to reduce the number of em dashes I use since coming here. Something seemed to tell me that it was just too sloppy and lazy, traits of which I have always inordinately proud. Now if you'll excuse me, I must dash off - I have to climb to a high fen.
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>I must dash off - I have to climb to a high fen.
Dash it - I use far many of them too!
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Well, my old typewriter does have a # key. It is shift-3 just where it is on my computer keyboard.
Top row keys:
"#$%_&'()* over the digits 2-0 and -.
To the right of the P we have ½ and shift to get ¼.
To the right of the L we have ¢ and shift to get @.
To the right of the M we have , . (both shift and non -shift) and / and shift for ?.
Quickie quiz: What key is missing and how did we get the character back in those good old days? And, no, I don't mean the numeral 1.
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I know, I know-- this is something i remember from my HS typing class!
First you typed Upper case S then hit back space and hit the / key!
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But what is Shift 4 on an English Keyboard? I mis ¢ from the keyboard-- and since my first Word processor used . as command key, i learned to use $0.05 instead 5¢ and now that Woolworth's 5¢ and 10¢'s Stores are gone, i rarely find i have a use for it-- i had to go look it up..
I have created short cut keys in my WP to use codes i use often, but email requires i actually remember the code numbers!
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What key is missing and how did we get the character back in those good old days?
Ah, them good old days. Single quote, backspace, full stop, or vice versa!
BTW some people used to use capital I instead of lower-case l for their one. Heresy and ignorance, I thought.
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In reply to:
Mr.5¢ (since you don't like Nick)--BTW some people used to use capital I instead of lower-case l for their one.
Capital I, in a serif font made a fine roman numeral 1, much better than it does in this san serif font. I prefer san serif, but will often make terms like WWII New Times Roman in a printed text so as to have proper roman numeral I. back in those mechanical days, before even daisy wheels or IBM print balls, you didn't have a choice of font- you could choose pica or elite. Maybe there were fancy typewriters that did have different fonts.. but if so, i never knew about them.
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I have this site http://www.hut.fi/~jkorpela/latin1/master.html bookmarked but eventually I made up a .txt file that covers most of the stuff I need. I have only the characters hex 80 and above. Eventually I'll add those from hex 20 to hex 7F.
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