<q> and language-specific quotation marks

[Stan Brown]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

In article <pan.2003.10.12 .22.32.50.53046 2@goddamn.co.uk > in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html, Toby A Inkster
<UseTheAddressI nMySig@deadspam .com> wrote:[color=blue]
><quote xml:lang="en">" Hello"</quote>[/color]

I'm trying hard to understand what advantage that has over

"Hello"

but I'm failing.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA

http://OakRoadSystems.com/

HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Bertilo Wennergren]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

Stan Brown:
[color=blue][color=green]
>><quote xml:lang="en">" Hello"</quote>[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> I'm trying hard to understand what advantage that has over[/color]
[color=blue]
> "Hello"[/color]
[color=blue]
> but I'm failing.[/color]

Let's say you want to do this:

quote {
font-style: italic;
}

You can of course add a meaningless "span" to your unstylable piece of
naked text, but wouldn't a meaningful element be better?

--
Bertilo Wennergren <bertilow@gmx.n et> <http://www.bertilow.co m>

[Andreas Prilop]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

Micah Cowan <micah@cowan.na me> wrote:
[color=blue]
> Every browser I've seen supports &ldquo;, &rdquo;,[/color]

Young boy!

[Toby A Inkster]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

Stan Brown wrote:
[color=blue]
> In article <pan.2003.10.12 .22.32.50.53046 2@goddamn.co.uk > in
> comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html, Toby A Inkster
> <UseTheAddressI nMySig@deadspam .com> wrote:[color=green]
>><quote xml:lang="en">" Hello"</quote>[/color]
>
> I'm trying hard to understand what advantage that has over
> "Hello"
> but I'm failing.[/color]

You're right. Scrap it. Scrap <strong> too -- we can just mark important
text *like* *this*.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me - http://www.goddamn.co.uk/tobyink/?id=132
playing://Random/peter_stuart_-_waiting_for_pe ace_to_come.ogg

[Micah Cowan]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tu t.fi> writes:
[color=blue]
> Micah Cowan <micah@cowan.na me> wrote:
>[color=green]
> > SHOULD and MUST are very different--formally.[/color]
>
> Theoretically HTML 4 specifications use RFC language here, but in
> practice their wording is not that formal.[/color]

The second paragraph of section 4 makes it 100% formal.
[color=blue]
> Anyway, by the RFC language,
> the statement that browsers SHOULD "render quotation marks in a
> language-sensitive manner" means that "there may exist valid reasons in
> particular circumstances to ignore [that statement] particular item,
> but the full implications must be understood and carefully weighed
> before choosing a different course". So if an implementator has
> understood the full implications etc. and decided not to make a user
> agent behave that way, what makes us think that an author knows
> better?[/color]

That's completely non-sequitur. The author is the *most*
qualified to make that decision, as it's *his* friggin' document,
and *his* choice of language. Even if it's not "correct", an
author has the right to exert such control over his own document,
and indeed the duty to do so if he wishes to achieve these results.
[color=blue][color=green]
> > You *are* supposed
> > to use CSS if you want to force a conforming user-agent to Do The
> > Right Thing(TM).[/color]
>
> No, of course not. First, HTML specifications do not postulate any use
> of CSS. They are meant to be used without a style sheet, with CSS style
> sheets, or with other style sheet.[/color]

The <style> element allows you to use any arbitrary style sheet
language, but CSS is specifically required for support of, e.g.,
style attributes.
[color=blue]
> Second, author style sheets (by
> design and by implementation) certainly cannot force anything.[/color]

If the user agent claims to be conforming to HTML 4 and CSS Level
2, and the style sheet is active (by default or by user choice)
the rules specified must be obeyed above any defaults specified
by the "internal stylesheet".
[color=blue]
> Third, a
> duplicate implementation of quotation mark rendering would be a shot in
> the dark. A browser programmer can be in a position to _know_ that e.g.
> curly quotes are not available in a rendering situation and use Ascii
> quotation marks instead, and if an author style sheet tries to force
> curly quotes, it could end up with having no quotes rendered.[/color]

If the programmer is in a position to know that they are not
available, he/she is in a position to substitute appropriate
characters, as is the case in some existing implementations .
[color=blue][color=green]
> > Agreed about (en); although even if it had been correct, I didn't
> > post using an encoding that would have allowed more appropriate
> > ones.[/color]
>
> Surely you could write a style sheet in Ascii only and yet use any
> Unicode character in generated content.[/color]

I'm talking about the pasted snippet from my post, not a literal stylesheet.
[color=blue][color=green]
> > As to (no); you're right, that's stupid. That's how they were in
> > the CSS2 standard, though (should've been &#x2039; and &#x203a; I
> > believe)[/color]
>
> No, notations like &#x2039; have no meaning in CSS.[/color]

I realize that. I was just using the SGML convention for
specifying the characters I would have wanted (since I wasn't
posting in Unicode).
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
> >> Use plain Ascii quotation marks[/color]
> >
> > Why? Every browser I've seen supports &ldquo;, &rdquo;,
> > etc.[/color]
>
> Then you haven't seen enough. Ascii quotation marks are _safe_, as I
> wrote.[/color]

&ldquo; and &rdquo; are _safe_ too. And more typographically
correct--as you yourself have pointed out. They work on a huge
variety of user-agents, including non-graphical ones, etc. Where
they are not available, they are often substituted with your
ASCII favorites.
[color=blue]
> If you consider using real quotation marks, then you should at
> least refrain from using those quasi-mnemonic entity references and use
> character references instead.[/color]

They are required to be supported by HTML 4.0-conformant user
agents, and are much more readale when editing source. However, I
typically post-process my HTML files to replace those entity
references not required by HTML 3.2 with the equivalent character
references.

-Micah

[Chris Hoess]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

In article <m3r81g6hfn.fsf @localhost.loca ldomain>, Micah Cowan wrote:[color=blue]
>
> The <style> element allows you to use any arbitrary style sheet
> language, but CSS is specifically required for support of, e.g.,
> style attributes.[/color]

Wrong. Read closely Section 14.2.2.

--
Chris Hoess

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

Micah Cowan <micah@cowan.na me> wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Theoretically HTML 4 specifications use RFC language here, but in
>> practice their wording is not that formal.[/color]
>
> The second paragraph of section 4 makes it 100% formal.[/color]

Thanks for a good laugh. Seriously, you haven't actually studied the
HTML specification much if you think that it really sticks to RFC
language.

I think I will refrain from commenting further - there's too much
confusion in your ideas of forcing things in CSS, etc. Hang around and
you'll gradually see that.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Stan Brown]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

In article <bmeofi$519$05$ 1@news.t-online.com> in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html, Bertilo Wennergren
<bertilow@gmx.n et> wrote:[color=blue]
>Stan Brown:[/color]

[stripped attribution restored]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Toby A Inkster <UseTheAddressI nMySig@deadspam .com>[color=darkred]
>>><quote xml:lang="en">" Hello"</quote>[/color][/color]
>[color=green]
>> I'm trying hard to understand what advantage that has over
>> "Hello"
>> but I'm failing.[/color]
>
>Let's say you want to do this:
> quote {
> font-style: italic;
> }
>You can of course add a meaningless "span" to your unstylable piece of
>naked text, but wouldn't a meaningful element be better?[/color]

No, I don't think so. More precisely, I don't think such a styling
in <quote> or <span> is ever appropriate. Maybe in other languages
things are different, but AFAIK in English inline quotes are not
styled differently from regular text.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA

http://OakRoadSystems.com/

HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Tina Holmboe]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

Tim <admin@sheerhel l.lan> exclaimed in <auclovopvfvrqg maqfap0etptm47u pcajq@4ax.com>:
[color=blue]
> On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 22:50:24 GMT,
> tina@greytower. net (Tina Holmboe) wrote:
>[color=green]
>> So far I have not seen a sensible explanation of why the *name* of
>> the element had to change.[/color]
>
> The obvious reasons:
>
> Q is broken, and is always going to be. Changing it will cause even
> more problems.[/color]

Firstly, no - it is not obvious. An indication of that is that I wouldn't
ask if it was.

Secondly, am I to understand that:

Q is broken because not everyone agrees that (visual) UAs should
include language specific quotation marks. It is further broken
because very few (one?) (visual) UA today actually implements it
as it is specified. Changing the definition of Q to be more in line
what some believe it should be, and more in line of what is currently
implemented, will cause MORE problems.


That makes absolutely no sense at all. For the very last time:

* Q, today, is not commonly implemented per specs in visual UAs.
Therefore, changing the specs to come into line with how it IS
implemented will present no problems.

* Q, today, is understood by quite a few UAs, visual and non-visual,
whether rendered as suggested by the specs or not. Redefining the
way an UA should render Q will not change that, nor will it represent
a problem.

* Changing the definition AND the name will leave the above-mentioned
tools hanging out to dry. It will present no - NO - advantage over
changing the definition and KEEPING the name.

* And, finally, a visual UA that actually implements todays Q element
per specs would - if the definition was changed but the name kept -
in some circumstances render

<quote>"somethi ng"</quote>

as

""something ""

That is hardly a major problem compared to the benefits of keeping
the meaning intact.




[color=blue]
> Quote is a better term than just q, likewise for other one letter tags.[/color]

Quite possibly. Breaking tools for the sake of the better term is a
terrible idea.



[color=blue]
> An XHTML 2, or any other NEWER form of language, doesn't have to be the
> same as the older versions. Older browsers will have problems with
> newer languages, no matter what. Newer browsers should handle new[/color]

Not if atleast some thought is given to backwards compatibility. An
HTML 4 UA can still make sense of an XHTML 2.0 document *if they don't
go changing the names for elements that retain the meaning*.



[color=blue]
> languages properly, and older ones as best as possible. Older documents
> should be handled in the manner that the old specifications mention, and
> newer documents, likewise.[/color]

... and new languages designed for public consumption should try to
retain backwards compatibility. Anything else is sheer folly.

--
- Tina Holmboe Greytower Technologies
tina@greytower. net http://www.greytower.net/
[+46] 0708 557 905

[Bertilo Wennergren]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

Stan Brown:
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>I'm trying hard to understand what advantage that has over
>>> "Hello"
>>>but I'm failing.[/color][/color][/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
>>Let's say you want to do this:
>> quote {
>> font-style: italic;
>> }
>>You can of course add a meaningless "span" to your unstylable piece of
>>naked text, but wouldn't a meaningful element be better?[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> No, I don't think so. More precisely, I don't think such a styling
> in <quote> or <span> is ever appropriate. Maybe in other languages
> things are different, but AFAIK in English inline quotes are not
> styled differently from regular text.[/color]

That seems to rule out lots of use of styling. E.g.:

<strong>whateve r</strong>

strong {
color: red;
background-color: white;
}

Never style a "span"? Never put a special background color on
a piece of text (logically marked up), because you dont do
that kind of thing in ordinary printed text?

And what about using a special voice to read quotes in a
voice browsers?

And how do we do this without using some mark-up?

Confucius said:
<quote cite="http://www.wisewords.o rg/confucius.html# bla">
"Bla, bla."
</quote>

--
Bertilo Wennergren <bertilow@gmx.n et> <http://www.bertilow.co m>

[Bertilo Wennergren]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

Tina Holmboe:
[color=blue]
> * And, finally, a visual UA that actually implements todays Q element
> per specs would - if the definition was changed but the name kept -
> in some circumstances render[/color]
[color=blue]
> <quote>"somethi ng"</quote>
> as
> ""something ""[/color]
[color=blue]
> That is hardly a major problem compared to the benefits of keeping
> the meaning intact.[/color]

Except it caters to those UA that _don't_ follow the specs, while
punishing those UAs (and their users) that _do_ follow the specs.

That seems like a strange practice, and a weird idea.

--
Bertilo Wennergren <bertilow@gmx.n et> <http://www.bertilow.co m>

[Brian]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

Tina Holmboe wrote:[color=blue]
> Q, today, is understood by quite a few UAs, visual and non-visual,[/color]

Such as?

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

[Stan Brown]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

In article <bmfk1q$t6p$03$ 1@news.t-online.com> in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html, Bertilo Wennergren
<bertilow@gmx.n et> wrote:

(Once again, I have restored the attribution that you stripped out.
Please do not put other people's words in my mouth. How would you
like it if I used your name on a quote that you disagree with?)
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Toby A Inkster <UseTheAddressI nMySig@deadspam .com>[color=darkred]
>>>Let's say you want to do this:
>>> quote {
>>> font-style: italic;
>>> }
>>>You can of course add a meaningless "span" to your unstylable piece of
>>>naked text, but wouldn't a meaningful element be better?[/color][/color]
>
>Stan Brown:[color=green]
>> No, I don't think so. More precisely, I don't think such a styling
>> in <quote> or <span> is ever appropriate. Maybe in other languages
>> things are different, but AFAIK in English inline quotes are not
>> styled differently from regular text.[/color]
>
>That seems to rule out lots of use of styling. E.g.:
>
> <strong>whateve r</strong>
>
> strong {
> color: red;
> background-color: white;
> }
>
>Never style a "span"?[/color]

That is not what I said. I said I don't think that styling a quote
in italics is appropriate, whether you use <quote> or <span> to do
it.

Of course there are all sorts of uses for styling <span>. But I
don't believe -- and again, somebody might well post a
counterexample to educate me -- I don't believe that it is ever
appropriate to style an inline quote in English differently from its
surrounding text.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA

http://OakRoadSystems.com/

HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Toby A Inkster]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

Stan Brown wrote:
[color=blue]
> (Once again, I have restored the attribution that you stripped out.
> Please do not put other people's words in my mouth. How would you
> like it if I used your name on a quote that you disagree with?)
>[color=green][color=darkred]
>>> Toby A Inkster <UseTheAddressI nMySig@deadspam .com>
>>>>Let's say you want to do this:[/color][/color][/color]

Can anyone see the irony?

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me - http://www.goddamn.co.uk/tobyink/?id=132

[Tina Holmboe]

Re: &lt;q&gt; and language-specific quotation marks

Brian <usenet1@mangym utt.com.invalid-remove-this-part> exclaimed in <LtKib.758870$H o3.196014@sccrn sc03>:
[color=blue]
> Tina Holmboe wrote:[color=green]
>> Q, today, is understood by quite a few UAs, visual and non-visual,[/color]
>
> Such as?[/color]

Mozilla ?

Opera ?

A number of UAs that process HTML and extract quotations ?

--
- Tina Holmboe Greytower Technologies
tina@greytower. net http://www.greytower.net/
[+46] 0708 557 905