Smart Quotes

[Kerrybuchanan]

I was told yesterday that I am using the wrong form of quotation marks in my writing.

I use the double curved quotation marks for my primary quotes but this person said I am using Smart Quotes and that publishers hate them because they confuse the typesetting. She said I should reset them to straight quotes.

Now this is the first I have heard of this, so I googled it and found this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark which does mention smart quotes.

Please can someone tell me if I need to do this (which is easy enough - I just change the autoformatting setup) or if I can go on as have been, happy in my ignorance?

Ps. I know the double quotes are reckoned to be more US usage and the singe quotes UK, but I was taught very young, in an English school, to use double for primary quotation marks and single for secondary and the habit has stuck. According to the above article that was the historical use anyway in the UK until the early 1800s.

 

[The Judge]

I use double quotation marks, too, since it caused less confusion with the use of apostrophes in some circumstances. I've no idea if there is a difference between curved and straight -- I just use whatever the double quote " is in the font I'm using, and it appears simply to be a doubling of the apostrophe ' one -- so either they are both curved or neither is.

I've never heard of Smart Quotes and have no idea what they might be. I've never had any comment from agents that the double curved quotation marks I used are wrong, and as you say double is usual US style, I believe, so presumably US agents and publishers would actually want them!

The person who told you to stop using them, is she a person who has some experience in the publishing world? As Teresa has remarked elsewhere, there are a lot of people who read one article, written by someone from a position of semi-ignorance, which is then repeated and repeated but without any evidence to support it. Unless that person who spoke to you is very, very experienced and up to date and knowledgeable, personally I'd ignore her and carry on using doubles.


EDIT: thinking about it, this probably ought to be in the Grammar section, not GWD, so I'll move it.

 

[hopewrites]

I believe Smart Quotes are a feature of a font that asks it to pay attention whether the character being displayed is an opening or closing mark and curl it appropriately. The only reason I can think that anyone would not like this is if the receiving program fouls the character to be displayed by not knowing what to do with the programed information.

Cross format formatting is about the only way I can think of for a typeset to get fouled over what you send in to the publisher. And a font that pays attention to whether you are opening a quote or closing a quote is the only thing I can think of being in the formatting for those characters since we only have one key on the keyboard for them.

Assuming this is what they were talking about, and further assuming that it's an uncommon problem (easily remedied by the publisher being able to accept the majority of common font formats and/or specifying which font and/or format(s) they prefer to receive material in), I wouldn't go so far as to change the settings you work under. Just keep an eye on submission specifications and put it in the list of things you know how to change if you have to.

 

[The Judge]

Ah, that's interesting, hope. Being technologically challenged, I didn't realise there was a difference (I just type what's there!).

I obviously got the wrong end of the stick, Kerry, concentrating on the double/single, not curved/straight issue. Sorry about that. I'd still think twice before changing, though, unless you're sure the person knew what she was talking about.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

I think that's good advice from both of you.

The lady who told me is in a writing group I'm a member of. She is an American originally who has lived here for many years, a retired English Professor with one published novella who teaches creative writing, but I doubt very much if she would be totally up to date these days. She was quite adamant, but it was the first I had heard of it. She said pretty much what you said above, @hopewrites about software getting it wrong when deciding if it is an opening or closing character.

I think I'll go on as I am.

Thank you for moving this, by the way, @The Judge.

 

[hopewrites]

No worries Judge, it's not something I would have thought of ether, except that I've been hanging out with programers a lot lately.

 

[HareBrain]

Smartquotes does foul up apostrophes that mark a missing letter at the start of a word. Unless you're careful to specify, you get:

what's this ‘ere then?

rather than

what's this ’ere then?

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

So should I change the auto-correct then, do you reckon, @HareBrain?

 

[HareBrain]

If your eye isn't offended by the result, as mine would be. I'd just make sure you get the opening apostrophes right. I can't believe it would swing the balance between acceptance and rejection.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Yes, I've had quite a time with editing a recent book where there was a lot of 'round and 'bout sort of dialogue, and they were all going the wrong direction. If you have apostrophes at the beginning of words, you want to either type the whole word with the apostrophe and then remove the unwanted letter (type a'round and then remove the a) or run it up against the previous word and then add a space (type going'round and then space it) so the apostrophe ends up facing the right way. Otherwise, the program thinks it's a left-quote mark instead.

 

[HareBrain]

Or simply hit ctrl+', then ' (in Word anyway).

(You also have to do this if ending single-quote dialogue with an em-dash.)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

"smartquotes" don't really exist. It's smart type setting in the word processor.

An apostrophe, a straight single quote, double single quote, opening quote, closing quote, opening double quote, closing double quote are actually SEVEN different characters / punctuation marks.
A regular keyboard has:
' " and ` only.
A wordprocessor uses context (space letter or letter space or letter letter) to do "smart quote" formatting. The resultant characters are NOT smart quotes
Example: result of typing " and ' due to context:
“I’ll pick you up.”
or for ' twice
‘Already’

There are also other quote marks, not used in English, normally
„Actung!”
The French ones, used sometimes in other languages, it's not < twice
«Attention!»

 

[tinkerdan]

As far as I know straight quotes come from typewriters and were used to economically free up key space by giving a single and double straight on one key. Typesetting has always been curly quotes with an open and close. I was used to the typewriter and managed to set up all my marks to be straight which meant that the editing had to remove those to insert the curly; so now I use the curly and we're all on the same page.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Computer keyboards and printed output originally were Teletypes (origin 1930s), which printed very limited character sets derived from typewriter, only 63 characters originally and then only 96 printable characters for many years in the 7 bit ASCII set (127 values + null). There was no standardisation with the extra 96 characters in later 8 bit ASCII. So it was really only from late 1980s / early 1990s that ordinary wordprocessing and desktop computers started to catch up with hundreds of years of typeset publishing. But by then computer keyboards had been standardised nearly 20 years based on Teleprinter keyboards. So wordprocessing would use context of keypress of ' or " to assume which actual character to insert. The so called "smart quotes" mechanism for
“I’ll pick you up.”
or for ' twice
‘Already’
The apostrophe in I’ll should in theory be a slightly different symbol visually and a different font code to a closing single quote in ‘Already’. With decent typesetting and a good font it will be different.

 

[Hex]

I switch smart quotes (which I think is what Word calls them, whether or not they should) off when I'm writing because otherwise sometimes things end up pointing in the wrong direction, and I can't be bothered.

My agent doesn't change them when she edits (but then she might not change them if they were curly, either, I don't know!)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

@Hex
The curled ones appearing automatically as you type ' or " is called smart quotes. But once they are there, they are not smart quotes, just puctuation.
Similarly typing
* text
more text

does smart bullet points on both lines, but Ctrl Z reverts it to * if you wanted asterisks.

I switch smart quotes off when I'm writing

That's fine, as Word can autoformat 'single', "double", *bold* , _underline_ etc for selection or whole document when you select autoformat. I think you can even edit the smartquote / autoformat rules.

 

[Jason Burrell]

Oh wow. This wasn't anything I was paying even the slightest attention. I'm going to have to go review everything I've been writing now.

 

[chrispenycate]

Despite my (earned) reputation for pedantry I have no logical basis for using "quote" or ”Quote“ - my computer (all right, the word-processing bit of it was French speaking as delivered and wanted to put «guilmots» round quotations, and space question and exclamation marks off the words they're married to, but I've (I¿ve ? No, no slanted apostrophe) broken it of those habits.
As the straight ones are two key operations, and half the slanted ones are three, I suspect straigh ones are there for the foreseeable future -and who can see more future than an SFF pedant?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Regional Settings and Keyboard.