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errant pedantry
I beg to differ:
back quote
If you're going to be pedantic, correct him for using the term
errant pedantry
Nope, it's not a "back quote" ... there is no such thing, it's a grave. Plus where is the "front quote" then? And don't say the apostrophe! There isn't one. It's a diacritical, just as the tilde is, regardless to other uses it might have in computing. Also it would be a "single open quote," and most of the time double quotes are used, unless you are nesting. Quotes are "open" and "closed," not back and front.
Examples of Diacriticals I see this used as a quote all the time, like `this' instead of ‘this', worse still is when someone tries to use it as a double quote like ``this'', instead of "this." But it's totally incorrect, and just plain ugly. I'm not sure what you are quoting from, but it's incorrect information. Just because it's a "common name" doesn't make it right. What it actually amounts to is "common errors" ... same as when people call this "/" a "back slash," or when people write the year as ‘05', as if they are quoting something, instead of '05. On a Mac, your single typographer's quotes are located using Option-] for the left, or opening quote, and Option-Shift-] for the right, or closing quote. The double typographer's quotes are located at Option-[ for the opening and Option-Shift-[ for the closing double quote.
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Pedantry vs. Reality
Saying it doesn't make it so. You can say it's not a back quote all your life, but that won't stop people from calling it that, because they have their reasons. On millions of dumb terminals and text-only video screens from decades past, the ` and ' characters appeared just like proper single quotes ‘ and '. If you never saw this, you might not believe me. I think "regardless to other uses it might have in computing" is a rude thing to say in this forum; computing is the whole reason we're here. There are a lot more purposes for computing than typesetting; in fact your whole computer typesetting system was made possible by programmers who call ` a back-quote, because that's their area of expertise.
Pedantry vs. Reality
It wasn't rude at all. The first person said I should have corrected him for calling it a "backtick instead of the more correct back quote" even though "back tick" was on his list, and "back quote" is not correct either. I wasn't correcting him anyway, I was merely stating the proper name of the character on that key. The character is called a grave, and the only reason people called it other things was because they didn't know what it was called. Did you even know what it's called? People like to get defensive when they don't know something. If programers called a tilde a "squiggly" would that make it right? Should we start calling an "A" a triangle? ;)
Pedantry vs. Reality
I agree with you David.
Pedantry vs. Reality
One thing:
Two CS professors did clash over the tilde
... and its proper name, in a workshop I attended. In the middle of some dry discussion of some obscure programming syntax, one of them casually mentioned "a twiddle" while scribbling a tilde on the whiteboard. The other asked what a twiddle was - "do you mean a tilde?" "Sure, but I call it a twiddle, just as we say 'bang' instead of 'exclamation point'." "But 'bang' is shorter - 'twiddle' isn't!" And so forth. It was a much livelier topic than anything else that day!
Two CS professors did clash over the tilde
> Just don't get me started on what to call the # character ... :)
Apple's fertility symbols
I've heard "grid" too (used as a name for #). But as with "bang" for ! and "twiddle" for ~, it was a bolder-geek-than-I using it. Of special relevance to us Macheads is the strange coincidence linking the cartographic origins of the # and its florid twin, Apple's "command key" symbol:
Apple's fertility symbols
I knew that one about the Command key being "a place of interest."
Pedantic Errancy
I guess you didn't catch my reference:
Winston Churchill once said (mockingly) to someone who criticized him for ending a sentence with a preposition: "That is the type of errant pedantry up with which I will not put!"My point was simply this: Context shapes the definition. When referring to coding and more generally, computers, it could well be argued that the correct name for that character is "back quote." In fact, my definition was straight from Dictionary.com (excuse the lack of reference). In linguistic and some typographical circumstances, your definition would be more correct -- but certainly, only with another alphabetical character beneath the grave accent. It is usually only used alone in definitions or a listing of accents!
Pedantic Errancy
That's a great Churchill quote! I can agree that in certain circumstances that a character is used for a different meaning, and as it is there is little use for accent characters on a keyboard that print alone, so I fully accept that programers have used things like tildes, graves, and carats for other uses. And have even given them new names. |
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