From Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk  Sat Sep 17 12:02:03 2005
From: Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk ( (Ted Harding))
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005 11:02:03 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [Rd] Typo [Was:  Rd and guillemots]
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.61.0509170836490.13510@gannet.stats>
Message-ID: <XFMail.050917110203.Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>

On 17-Sep-05 Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Sep 2005 Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
> 
>> On 16-Sep-05 Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>>> [...]
>>> This seems to happen in Rdconv.pm, around here:
>>>
>>>      ## avoid conversion to guillemots
>>>      $c =~ s/<</<\{\}</;
>>>      $c =~ s/>>/>\{\}>/;
>>
>> The name of the "continental" quotation mark ? is "guillemet".
>>
>> The R Development Core Team must have had some bird on the brain
>> at the time ...
> 
> I don't think any authority agrees with Ted here. There are two 
> characters, left and right.

Agreed I only gave one instance. Either ? or ? is a guillemet.

As to "any authority", it depends what you mean by "authority".

1. Take any good French dictionary (e.g. Collins "Robert").
   Look up [Fr]"guillemet": --> [En]"quotation mark, inverted comma".
   Look up [En]"quotation mark": --> [Fr]"guillemet".

   There is a phrase "entre guillemets": --> "in quotation marks"
   or "in quotes", and vice versa.

   Look up [Fr]"guillemot": --> [En]"guillemot" and vice versa.

2. Take a good book on printing/typographical matters, e.g. "The
   Chicago Manual of Style" which is very comprehensive.

   Index: "guillemets" [the entry is in the plural]: -> 9.22-26
   "Small angle marks called guillemets (??) are used for quotation
   marks ..."

   Index: "guillemot": --> nothing found.

It's not as straightforward as that, however! In French, "guillemet"
is in fact used generically for "quotation mark" and, typographically,
includes not only the marks ? and ? we are talking bout, but also
the marks used for similar purposes in "non-continental" typography.

So the opening double quote `` (e.g. in Times Roman) and closing ''
(sorry, can't make these marks in email) are also "guillemets".
Indeed we have [note the singular] "guillemet anglais ouvrant" (``),
"guillemet anglais fermant" (''), as well as "guillemet fran?ais
ouvrant" (?), "guillemet fran?ais fermant (?); not to mention the
fact that a "guillemet fran?ais" e.g. ? consists of two "chevrons"
and one can also have a "chevron ouvrant" consisting of just one
of these (can't do this either) which is also called a "guillemet
fran?ais simple ouvrant" (in PostScript "guilsingleft"), etc. And
there is (as in Courier font) the guillemet dactylographique
= typewriter quotation mark ("). And lots of other variants.

Rather than sink in the morass of French-speaking usage, we might
be better off referring to an authority closer to the sort of usage
that concerns us, So I've had a look at the Unicode Standard,
specifically

  http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/NamesList.txt

where one can find

  00AB    LEFT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK
          = LEFT POINTING GUILLEMET
          = chevrons (in typography)
          * usually opening, sometimes closing

  00BB    RIGHT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK
          = RIGHT POINTING GUILLEMET
          * usually closing, sometimes opening

  2039    SINGLE LEFT-POINTING ANGLE QUOTATION MARK
          = LEFT POINTING SINGLE GUILLEMET
          * usually opening, sometimes closing

  203A    SINGLE RIGHT-POINTING ANGLE QUOTATION MARK
          = RIGHT POINTING SINGLE GUILLEMET
          * usually closing, sometimes opening

but no guillemots!

> Collectively it seems agreed they are called guillemets, but the
> issue is over the names of the single characters, and the character
> shown is the left guillem[eo]t.

See above ...

> Adobe says these are left and right guillemot.  It seems that the 
> majority opinion does not agree, but there is a substantial usage 
> following Adobe.

That is certainly a matter of fact! And it is certainly thus in
Adobe's PostScript Language Reference Manual (see e.g. Standard
Roman Character Set in Appendix E, "Standard Character Sets and
Encoding Vectors"). So that is what must be used when invoking
them in PostScript. However, I am firmly of the view that Adobe
made an error when they gave these things the names "guillemotleft"
and "guillemotright".

> I had already changed the R source code, so please Ted and others
> follow the advice in the posting guide and
> 
> *** check the current sources before posting alleged bugs ***

Easier said than done ... However, I apologise!

Nevertheless, apart from the issue of a possible "R bug", I think
it is worth putting the record straight on the general issue of
nomenclature.

Best wishes to all,
Ted.


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Date: 17-Sep-05                                       Time: 10:51:17
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[Rd] Typo [Was: Rd and guillemots]
 (Ted Harding