Talk:Quotation mark

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This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.

Dutch standard vs alternative

What is presented as the standard in Dutch (= English style) is definitely not what I learned in school (that would be „the alternative”) before computers were used by most people. Yes, it's true that the English style quotation marks are now in common use, as well as the simple ' and " for quotation, but just because it's widely used doesn't make it a standard. Unless I get some good reasoning to the contrary, I'm going to change standard vs alternative for Dutch in the near future. BGPexpert (talk) 16:53, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wide usage most certainly IS a standard, though not necessarily the only one. There is no law or regulation saying coffee must be served in a convenient container, but people don't usually want coffee poured into their hand or down their throat, so cups have become the standard, despite the fact that the EU does not have a committee for it. (If such a committee really does exist, let's go pour coffee on them.) TooManyFingers (talk) 06:59, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What you learned about quotation marks in school, you were taught for only one reason: it is the way everyone did it, and it is convenient that everyone does this kind of thing the same way. "The standard" is nothing but "everyone does that". If "everyone" changes "everyone's" mind, then the standard has already been changed.

And if an intelligent and prudent group of people propose something that is easier and better in every way, but no one listens to them, then (unfortunately) it is not a standard. TooManyFingers (talk) 07:12, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The trouble is that there is not really a "standard". The rules of the Dutch language spoken in the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname are governed by the Taalunie, and they don't seem to have rules for quotation marks. I'd say „traditional” vs ‘common use’ would be the best description here. BGPexpert (talk) 11:53, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

''" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect '' has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 March 27 § until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 19:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Table links make no sense

The Summary table of this article contains links to wiktionary. As far as I have searched, none of those wiktionary pages exist. It makes no sense to have those links instead of links to different language wikipedias. — Snoteleks (talk) 15:59, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Esthetic problem: ." as a future aligned single character

We should create a unique closing quotation mark at the end of phrases. An aligned ." as a single character when used at the end of the phrase[s].

This is a glyph/font esthetic problem according to many graphic artists, font creators and others who noticed this problem. 2A02:587:4F0C:9300:ADDF:7B50:FFD5:C561 (talk) 09:32, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]