From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Getting Emacs to play nice with Hunspell and apostrophes Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 18:13:27 +0200 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: <8761k3tqoo.fsf@debian.uxu> References: <87ha3s71mt.fsf@debian.uxu> <87tx7rsevi.fsf@debian.uxu> <8738fbscao.fsf@debian.uxu> <8738f8w988.fsf@debian.uxu> <8761k3vj2y.fsf@debian.uxu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1402762533 28499 80.91.229.3 (14 Jun 2014 16:15:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 16:15:33 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jun 14 18:15:25 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Wvqbw-00066r-09 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 14 Jun 2014 18:15:20 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35986 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Wvqbt-00085D-GW for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 14 Jun 2014 12:15:17 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed3a.news.xs4all.nl!xs4all!news.stack.nl!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 141 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: SIvZRMPqRkkTHAHL6NkRuw.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:Ho+l3bdCUzwhvYQB3cMErrcH0AY= Mail-Copies-To: never Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:205987 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:98257 Archived-At: Yuri Khan writes: >>> Curly quotes (and, in Russian print tradition, >>> double angle quotes) are what I am used to seeing in >>> print and consider to be the correct way to write >> OK, I believe you. However, the point I made with all >> people coming from different cultures is that it >> doesn't matter where we are from individually. When I >> went to school, I suppose I was most comfortable with >> Swedish. But I'm not supposing we all switch to >> Swedish! > > OK, so what? I expect that people of all cultures who > were exposed to books printed before the advent of > the computer and the word processor are used to > typographic characters. I'm OK disagreeing but I want you to understand me. The point is: the cultures are in this discussion irrelevant. If the cultures were what decided things you should be speaking Russian and I Swedish. We don't, because we have travelled to a common point so that when we interact in the computer world, we are using the "Computer English" language, which I have described several times now. This is the English in the man pages, in the RFCs, in the C code, in the HTML, and all that. In this language you don't write if you are Swedish, if you are British, etc., *all* write
, otherwise it doesn't work! Likewise, to quote in Usenet post we use >, to double quote, >>, and so on; to mark where the signature starts we use --, because otherwise highlighting/hiding of the quotes/signature doesn't work, because the clients are looking for those specific chars! In "Computer English", the de facto standard is ' and ", and it doesn't matter what books anyone read as kids. Because we are not doing that *now*! All of us have moved to a common culture which is common for practical reasons - it is not aesthetics or snobbism, it is reality - and there is no reason whatsoever to fight it. It only creates exactly the problems as was the very reason the OP had to write to this list. >> OK, that's a ridiculous example as it is extreme, >> while what we discuss now is perhaps trivial (' or >> ) - but in principle it is the same. The computer >> language is English, and as I showed - the man pages >> for ls and emacs, as well as the RFC excerpt, as >> well as all experience with mails and Usenet and >> programming culture - all show that in "Computer >> English", ' (not ) is correct. > > They are that way because they were written in the > dark age of ten thousand code pages and never updated > to Unicode. It doesn't matter. That's the way it is. Like the sentence I just wrote. I don't care why the English word for "way" is "way". It just is, and it is very, very unpractical and extremely arrogant for anyone to say, I don't like it to be "way", for no reason whatsoever save for aesthetics (which isn't a consensus by the way) I like it to be "yaw" - and the argument for changing, is that there are (of course!) historical roots for the word "way" being "way" - if someone had thought about it really hard (and exactly like me, today) he or she would have decided the word for "way" should be "yaw" --- it doesn't make any sense! > They exist *because* there was a certain technical > limitation in the last fifty years or so. Since this > limitation has been removed, there is no reason for > them. They do not exist because there was a technical limitation fifty years ago. They exist, today, because they are useful, today! > I believe users of the VGA text console are > intelligent beings and respect their decision to > suffer. Forget it. I have Gnus configured to transparently replace your goofy chars with the correct ones. > Otherwise, primarily, the material will be read by a > human being, and only secondarily in a computer > program. I wish for a future where the Web replaces > the printed book Lunacy. > therefore, the Web must do all things books do, and > then some. The web can already do that in principle but that doesn't mean books, papers, libraries, and so on will disappear. That's a horrible thought but luckily it won't happen. > If I have to read a printed document, every straight > quote, every hyphen used in place of a dash, every > uneven space, pulls me out of the flow. The only way > for me to stop thinking about the characters is if > they are exactly as in a book typeset by a skilled > typesetter on a pre-computer-era press. Yes, this is only snobbism and aesthetics for the sake of it. This is what I have expected from day one. Yes, LaTeX can produce very good looking documents and I have spent countless of hours in that department - but that you isn't able to read a book without it is just - I don't know. It is not reality. In reality you read what you have to read. >> when you program and write in English (like now), >> don't you use the US keyboard layout? That's what I >> do to get the brackets and the semicolon and all >> that with no fuss - it is not that I use the Swedish >> chars that much, anyway! (Which is again the whole >> point.) And with the US layout, ' (and so on) are >> easier to type than the chars you suggest. > > The difference between ' and AltGr+' is almost > negligible for me. We don't have to "almost" that: ' is one key, AltGr+' is two. > I do understand we have engaged in a holy war not > directly related to the original posters > problem. Lets agree to disagree. The OP had a problem because he used the incorrect chars. While the spellchecker still should cope, I still haven't heard one argument that makes sense why anyone should benefit from those goofy chars. -- underground experts united: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573