I have a question about the style of the double quotes used in the Trebuchet MS font. Double quotes are often referred to as 66 99 quotes, since that's what they look like. But Trebuchet is different. Instead of a 66, is has what looks like a backwards 99.
Anybody know why this is? Do you think it "lessens" the value of the font to be like this? I know some people who think so, but I do not agree.
I myself don't use Trebuchet myself, and never will -- maybe because its not a very "reputable" font. (It maybe great, but not in my eyes.) The backwards 99 does not really decrease the font's value but test it out with some other fonts, and see what looks best.
> I have a question about the style of the double quotes used in the > Trebuchet MS font. Double quotes are often referred to as 66 99 > quotes, since that's what they look like. But Trebuchet is different. > Instead of a 66, is has what looks like a backwards 99.
> Anybody know why this is? Do you think it "lessens" the value of the > font to be like this? I know some people who think so, but I do not > agree.
It is influence from the American handwriting practise to draw the opening and ending quotes as mirrored. IMHO it's just plain wrong.
In German, we have the quotedblbase #0132 for opening and the American quotedblleft #0147 as closing quotes. Fonts with mirrored quotedblleft are unusable for setting German text, and most recent MS core fonts belong to that group. Tahoma, Courier New, Trebuchet and Comic Sans belong to that group.
Andreas Höfeld wrote: > Also sprach/Thus spake Dave I:
>>I have a question about the style of the double quotes used in the >>Trebuchet MS font. Double quotes are often referred to as 66 99 >>quotes, since that's what they look like. But Trebuchet is different. >> Instead of a 66, is has what looks like a backwards 99.
>>Anybody know why this is? Do you think it "lessens" the value of the >>font to be like this? I know some people who think so, but I do not >>agree.
> It is influence from the American handwriting practise to draw > the opening and ending quotes as mirrored. IMHO it's just plain > wrong.
> In German, we have the quotedblbase #0132 for opening and the > American quotedblleft #0147 as closing quotes. Fonts with mirrored > quotedblleft are unusable for setting German text, and most recent > MS core fonts belong to that group. Tahoma, Courier New, Trebuchet > and Comic Sans belong to that group.
> Andreas
I think the mirrored quotes are influenced by the desire of PowerPoint users (not a typographically sophisticated user base) to have something that "looks right" to them. Picture, if you will, a salesman standing up and giving a presentation in which he waggles his fingers in the air to represent scare quotes. That hand motion is symmetric, left to right, and that same salesman, when he throws scare quotes into his PowerPoint slides, thinks the quotes should look like his finger waggles.
A lot of Microsoft's fonts are designed for use on screen, and this is not for the sake of people staring at Word documents; it's for the sake of PowerPoint users. So I think this may be a reasonable hypothesis as to the reason for this peculiarity.
By the way, you also see the same type of quote sometimes in painted signs, such as supermarket window posters (back when they were still painted by hand); so there is some historical precedent.
I think the best solution from the typographer's point of view is just to avoid these fonts altogether in print, as they weren't designed with print in mind in the first place.
> I have a question about the style of the double quotes used in the > Trebuchet MS font. Double quotes are often referred to as 66 99 > quotes, since that's what they look like. But Trebuchet is different. > Instead of a 66, is has what looks like a backwards 99.
> Andreas Höfeld <sendnos...@vorsicht-bissig.de> [2004-09-02]: >> Fonts with mirrored >> quotedblleft are unusable for setting German text, and most recent >> MS core fonts belong to that group. Tahoma, Courier New, Trebuchet >> and Comic Sans belong to that group.
> I think the mirrored quotes are influenced by the desire of PowerPoint > users (not a typographically sophisticated user base) to have > something that "looks right" to them. Picture, if you will, a > salesman standing up and giving a presentation in which he waggles > his fingers in the air to represent scare quotes.
LOL! I am with you.
> I think the best solution from the typographer's point of view is just > to avoid these fonts altogether in print, as they weren't designed > with print in mind in the first place.
I'd even avoid them in Powerpoint presentations ;-) Though, I somewhat like Trebuchet italic. Next time I use it with quotes I might do the illegal and appropriate ;-)
On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 14:46:30 +0200, Andreas Höfeld <sendnos...@vorsicht-bissig.de> took a very strange rock and inscribed these words:
>It is influence from the American handwriting practise to draw >the opening and ending quotes as mirrored. IMHO it's just plain >wrong.
Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft. I am a U.S. citizen and I *hate* "mirrored" quotes. As you note, they are wrong, they also cause compatibility problems when the fonts are not compatible. It has not much to do with the language because I see the same problem with English text too.
-- Therese Shellabarger / The Roving Reporter - Civis Mundi tlsh...@concentric.net / http://tlshell.cnc.net/
tlsh...@concentric.net wrote: > On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 14:46:30 +0200, Andreas Höfeld > <sendnos...@vorsicht-bissig.de> took a very strange rock and inscribed > these words:
>>It is influence from the American handwriting practise to draw >>the opening and ending quotes as mirrored. IMHO it's just plain >>wrong.
> Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft.
Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither created fonts nor anything else related to the question. All they've done (in apps like Word) is offer an alternative (their "smart quote" function" to the "dumb quotes" that were on typewriters for over a hundred years, copied to the earliest computer character sets on print trains & similiar, and brought forward by Apple, IBM, Commodore, et al to the personal computer. (But there's LOTS of other stuff you CAN blame Microsoft for!)
Long before there were computers, I and just about everybody else in grade school was hand-writing pairs of quotation marks that were mirrored.
> I am a > U.S. citizen and I *hate* "mirrored" quotes. As you note, they are > wrong, they also cause compatibility problems when the fonts are not > compatible. It has not much to do with the language because I see the > same problem with English text too.
Andreas Prilop wrote: > On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Character wrote:
>>>Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft.
>>Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither >>created fonts nor anything else related to the question.
> I wonder what the letters "MS" in "Trebuchet MS" mean.
Once Upon A Time, In A Land Far, Far, Away . . .
A little boy with bad hair and funny-looking glasses sat in the middle of his family's living room, scooting himself around in a circle, pointing at everything in the room, and screaming, "My Stuff! My Stuff! My Stuff!"
Andreas Prilop wrote: > On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Character wrote:
>>>Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft.
>>Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither >>created fonts nor anything else related to the question. > I wonder what the letters "MS" in "Trebuchet MS" mean.
Ok .. BUT
Now that I took a good look at Trebuchet MS, it HAS proper 66-99 (and 6-9) left and right double and single quotes.
Unicode positions 201C and 201D for the left/right double quotes and 2018/2019 for the left/right single quotes.
MS (Still the same one) Word uses these properly when "smart quotes" is selected. NOW I don't understand the OP's original question.
: > On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Character wrote: : > : > : >>>Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft. : >> : >>Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither : >>created fonts nor anything else related to the question. : : > I wonder what the letters "MS" in "Trebuchet MS" mean. : : Ok .. BUT : : Now that I took a good look at Trebuchet MS, it HAS proper 66-99 (and : 6-9) left and right double and single quotes. : : Unicode positions 201C and 201D for the left/right double quotes and : 2018/2019 for the left/right single quotes. : : MS (Still the same one) Word uses these properly when "smart quotes" is : selected. NOW I don't understand the OP's original question. : : - Character
I am not surprised by your puzzlement.
If you deactivate the Trebuchet version you now have (probably 1.23) and install v 1.15 that came with Windows 9x systems, you will see the mirrored single and double quotes. If you just click on the v 1.15 file witth v 1.23 installed, 1.23 will display instead.
I think there are now no fonts sourced from MS, recent versions, that have the "incorrect" forms. However, I have been wrong before.
Typographers tend to be very conservative, it seems, and prefer the traditional form.
A by-the-way question: in metal type, is the same pype piece used for both left/open and right/close double quote onlt upside-down?
On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Thomas Ferguson wrote: >: Unicode positions 201C and 201D for the left/right double quotes and >: 2018/2019 for the left/right single quotes.
> I think there are now no fonts sourced from MS, recent versions, that > have the "incorrect" forms.
Dave I wrote: > I have a question about the style of the double quotes used in the > Trebuchet MS font. Double quotes are often referred to as 66 99 > quotes, since that's what they look like. But Trebuchet is different. > Instead of a 66, is has what looks like a backwards 99.
> Anybody know why this is? Do you think it "lessens" the value of the > font to be like this? I know some people who think so, but I do not > agree.
> Thanks
> Dave Isaacs
Tom Ferguson's response to my puzzlement over your question includes the answer and fix. If you prefer the 66-99 to the mirrored quotes, install a later version of Trebuchet (1.23) instead of the Windows 9x version that you probably have. It has the 66-99 varieties.
> A by-the-way question: in metal type, is the same pype piece used for > both left/open and right/close double quote onlt upside-down?
> ~Tom
Tom,
In foundry type, where each sort is individually cast, it is possible that the same _matrix_ is used and just positioned differently in the casting machine, although I doubt it. It is far more likely that the same _punch_ is used to make two different matrices--along with the single quotes and the comma. But the cast sorts are different and not interchangeable.
If you look at a piece of foundry type, you will find a notch on one side of the shank. This indicates, by feel, where the bottom of the character is. That is, when the sorts are lined up in the composing stick, all the notches form a straight groove at the bottom of the line of type. Each sort is the full point size in height, as well, so that the set line of type forms a perfect rectangle. A period is set on a block of metal that is the same number of points high as the W and the Q and the apostrphe and the open double quote and the center dot and the raised dot. Each character is positioned on the block at the location relative to the baseline where the designer wants it. It is also positioned left to right so that it has the side bearings that the designer wants. If you were to invert an open double quote, you would not get a close double quote; you would get a double comma instead. And if you inverted an open single quote, you would get a comma that was more than likely raised or lowered relative to the baseline. But that would be an easy mistake for the hand pegger to make were it not for the notch.
Character <C...@cters.italic> wrote in message <news:crSZc.649347$y4.118627@news.easynews.com>... > tlsh...@concentric.net wrote: > > On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 14:46:30 +0200, Andreas H feld > > <sendnos...@vorsicht-bissig.de> took a very strange rock and inscribed > > these words: > >>It is influence from the American handwriting practise to draw > >>the opening and ending quotes as mirrored. IMHO it's just plain > >>wrong.
> > Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft.
> Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither > created fonts nor anything else related to the question.
They created, or at least commissioned, Trebuchet. "Trebuchet MS available for download Redmond, WA. - 11 November 1996 As part of Microsoft's strategy to bring improved Typography to the Internet, a new type family has been added to our collection of TrueType core fonts for the Web. Trebuchet MS, by Microsoft Type engineer, Vincent Connare, is now available as a download for Microsoft Windows, and Apple Macintosh computers."
> All they've > done (in apps like Word) is offer an alternative (their "smart quote" > function" to the "dumb quotes" that were on typewriters for over a > hundred years, copied to the earliest computer character sets on print > trains & similiar, and brought forward by Apple, IBM, Commodore, et al > to the personal computer. (But there's LOTS of other stuff you CAN > blame Microsoft for!)
That's not the issue here. Word's (and most DTP apps) smart quotes use standard typographic quotes for fonts that have them; but Trebuchet doesn't, it has the "head" of the quote always at the top, the tail always down. As does Tahoma, though as a sans it's not so obvious. The other MS fonts I've looked at have normal 6/9 style quotes. (Comic Sans is also a Connare design, but its quotes are just strokes with no clear head.)
> > I have a question about the style of the double quotes used in the > > Trebuchet MS font. Double quotes are often referred to as 66 99 > > quotes, since that's what they look like. But Trebuchet is different. > > Instead of a 66, is has what looks like a backwards 99.
>>>On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 14:46:30 +0200, Andreas H feld >>><sendnos...@vorsicht-bissig.de> took a very strange rock and inscribed >>>these words:
>>>>It is influence from the American handwriting practise to draw >>>>the opening and ending quotes as mirrored. IMHO it's just plain >>>>wrong.
>>>Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft.
>>Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither >>created fonts nor anything else related to the question.
> They created, or at least commissioned, Trebuchet. > "Trebuchet MS available for download > Redmond, WA. - 11 November 1996 > As part of Microsoft's strategy to bring improved Typography to the > Internet, a new type family has been added to our collection of > TrueType core fonts for the Web. Trebuchet MS, by Microsoft Type > engineer, Vincent Connare, is now available as a download for > Microsoft Windows, and Apple Macintosh computers."
Yep - Andreas P already yanked my chain on that one :)
>> All they've >>done (in apps like Word) is offer an alternative (their "smart quote" >>function" to the "dumb quotes" that were on typewriters for over a >>hundred years, copied to the earliest computer character sets on print >>trains & similiar, and brought forward by Apple, IBM, Commodore, et al >>to the personal computer. (But there's LOTS of other stuff you CAN >>blame Microsoft for!)
> That's not the issue here. Word's (and most DTP apps) smart quotes use > standard typographic quotes for fonts that have them; but Trebuchet > doesn't, it has the "head" of the quote always at the top, the tail > always down.
It's been since pointed out that it was an encoding error, fixed in more recent Trebuchet versions.
> As does Tahoma, though as a sans it's not so obvious.
I'm off to look at Tahoma (XP/SP1 version)
I'm back. Still mirrored "tapered sticks"
> The other MS fonts I've looked at have normal 6/9 style quotes. (Comic
> Sans is also a Connare design, but its quotes are just strokes with no > clear head.)
Ah yes. Comic Sans. The exemplar of typographic style.
: : : > : > A by-the-way question: in metal type, is the same pype piece used for : > both left/open and right/close double quote onlt upside-down? : > : > ~Tom : > : : Tom, : : In foundry type, where each sort is individually cast, it is possible : that the same _matrix_ is used and just positioned differently in the : casting machine, although I doubt it. It is far more likely that the : same _punch_ is used to make two different matrices--along with the : single quotes and the comma. But the cast sorts are different and not : interchangeable. : : If you look at a piece of foundry type, you will find a notch on one : side of the shank. This indicates, by feel, where the bottom of the : character is. That is, when the sorts are lined up in the composing : stick, all the notches form a straight groove at the bottom of the line : of type. Each sort is the full point size in height, as well, so that : the set line of type forms a perfect rectangle. A period is set on a : block of metal that is the same number of points high as the W and the Q : and the apostrphe and the open double quote and the center dot and the : raised dot. Each character is positioned on the block at the location : relative to the baseline where the designer wants it. It is also : positioned left to right so that it has the side bearings that the : designer wants. If you were to invert an open double quote, you would : not get a close double quote; you would get a double comma instead. And : if you inverted an open single quote, you would get a comma that was : more than likely raised or lowered relative to the baseline. But that : would be an easy mistake for the hand pegger to make were it not for the : notch. :
> > I have a question about the style of the double quotes used in the > > Trebuchet MS font. Double quotes are often referred to as 66 99 > > quotes, since that's what they look like. But Trebuchet is different. > > Instead of a 66, is has what looks like a backwards 99.
> > Anybody know why this is? Do you think it "lessens" the value of the > > font to be like this? I know some people who think so, but I do not > > agree.
> > Thanks
> > Dave Isaacs
> Tom Ferguson's response to my puzzlement over your question includes the > answer and fix. If you prefer the 66-99 to the mirrored quotes, install > a later version of Trebuchet (1.23) instead of the Windows 9x version > that you probably have. It has the 66-99 varieties.
Andreas Höfeld wrote: > Also sprach/Thus spake Dave I:
>>This is a bit of an aside question, but exactly why are such fonts >>unusable in German?
> Because the "66" quote is not what it should be but a > mirrored "99".
> Andreas H
I think Dave I's question (which I was about to ask myself) was "Why is this a significant difference in German? In English it's only a matter of æsthetics and typographical style. Does the configuration of the quotes make a grammatical difference or change the meaning of a phrase?"
A by-the-way question: in metal type, is the same pype piece used for both left/open and right/close double quote onlt upside-down? ------------------------------------------------- When we used handset metal foundry type or handset Monotype and there were no open quotes in the font, we used commas rotated 180 degrees for open quotes.
