Re: Proposed: QS/QE macros for quotation in man(7)

[Alejandro Colomar]

Hi Branden,

On Wed, Dec 18, 2024 at 08:00:53PM -0600, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Synopsis:
> 
> .QS [suppress-initial-word-hyphenation?]
>        Begin quotation.  An opening quotation mark is formatted.  The
>        line is not broken.  The optional argument is a Boolean value
>        (“0” or “1”) indicating whether automatic hyphenation of the
>        initial word should be suppressed.  The default is “0”.
> 
> .QE
>        End quotation.  A closing quotation mark is formatted.  The line
>        is not broken.
> 
> Pro:
> * People may discover that quotation marks are properly available in
>   the man(7) language, a fact that has been obscure for 45 years.  (The
>   `\*(lq` and `\*(rq` syntax has been available since day one [1979].  I
>   suspect these failed because man page authors who weren't already
>   practiced in *roff had no idea what a *roff string was, or how to
>   interpolate one, and the elaborate syntax filled them with fear.)

I prefer \[lq] and \[rq] over .QS and .QE.  BTW, that's that '*' mean?

> * A consequence of the above is that bold and italics may be abused
>   for quotation purposes less, and since quotation marks will survive
>   copy-and-paste operations, those operations will become more reliable
>   for users.  (This might slightly increase pressure on man page authors
>   to ensure their examples are correct.  Horrors.)

If you'd like to send some patches to the man-pages project for using
lq and rq to replace italics, I would welcome the change.  However, I
don't remember having seen many quotes, from the top of my head.

> * People are going to reasonably want to suppress hyphenation sometimes
>   in the first word in a quotation, because it will often be a
>   programming language literal or similar.  Chet Ramey (Bash maintainer)
>   uncovered this requirement in less than a month, as I recall.

I prefer \% over a new boolean to a macro.  Both are two bytes ("\%" vs
" 1"), and one is standard roff since forever.  Plus \% is a generic
tool vs the boolean which a specific tool, and I tend to favour generic
ones.

For the same reason, I'm a defendant of cat(1) as a starter of a
pipeline, at least when typing interactively, even if it may be
considered a useless use of cat(1).  It actually saves typing cat(1)
later when you find out you need sudo(8) for reading the file.

> At 2024-12-18T22:08:53+0100, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> > Hmmm, good reminder.  The British are right on the quotes.  Just like
> > their wall plugs are the best.  A couple of things the British did
> > well.
> 
> I agree that the British have the better punctuation placement
> convention.  And yes, their consumer grade electrical interface is a
> marvel.
> 
> I'm also interested to read this:
> 
> https://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/book/british-rail/
> 
> ...and last, but not least, they pronounce "status" more correctly than
> American English speakers (like me) are trained to.
> 
> But now that I've conceded three things, I must pivot back.  "PROE-cess"
> and "PROE-gress" are gauche.  The Canadians, eternally trembling with
> fear of being mistaken for Yankees, seized these habits too.  The
> post-American Revolution RP vowel shift is nonsense, an affectation of
> the posh, the very sort of people that the Monty Python troupe rightly
> mocked as twits.
> 
> Not that Cockney (or its descendants) are any better.  Worse, probably.
> Joe Strummer sounds like he should have gone up for the role of Simple
> Jack in _Tropic Thunder_.  To hear good English in the U.K. I suspect
> you've simply got to get away from London.  I was in Northern Ireland
> briefly (before Brexit).  People were quite pleasantly intelligible
> there.  Just as much as across the invisible, un-checkpointed national
> border, one of the most civilized things I've ever seen.  Of course it
> had to come under threat.  :(

I lived in Sligo town for half a year, and the day I arrived at the
country, I got into a taxi.  I didn't know if the person I was talking
to was actually speaking English, or some Irish language.  :D
With time, my ears got used to it, but OMG, it was hard the first days.
I like their accent and vocabulary very much now.


Have a lovely night!
Alex

> 
> Regards,
> Branden



-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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