> On Thu, Jan 31 2019 at 02:14:13 PM, Ingo Schwarze <schwa...@usta.de> > wrote: > > i just submitted the following patch to the groff bugtracker: > > > > https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?55616 > > > > The (identical) rationale and patch are reproduced below for > > convenience. > >
Bertrand Garrigues wrote: > I've always found the rendering of the asymetrical single quotes like > `this' quite odd, so I vote for. I agree. I’ve used nroff since the mid-1980s (when ‘\(oq’ and ‘\(cq’ didn’t even exist), and using accent grave for an opening quote has always looked pretty amateurish to me. A typewriter is typewriter, and no amount of wishin’ and hopin’ will make it otherwise. I’m fine with diddles like “--” for \(em (which follows long-established typewriter practice anyway), but I think some others (such as `word') just don’t work. I see no reason to treat ‘\(oq’ and ‘\(cq’ differently than ‘\(lq’ and ‘\(rq’. I still coded as `word' and ``word'' because troff was the favored output, but I winced at the resulting ASCII output. I used (and still use) a script to replace ‘``’ with ‘\(lq’ and ‘''’ with ‘\(rq’; it’s a bit tougher with single quotes. But with ‘\(oq’ already coded, I can’t think of a good reason not to render it properly. I vote for. Hopefully, I haven’t missed an obvious gotcha. Jeff
