Using , instead of '

apeZ · 24 Jan 2011 at 22:34

Going to use this thread to get a question answered.

In academic essays/assignments (uni level) when you quote others work (authors, theorists, researchers etc) do you use ' or " ?

.Ox. · 24 Jan 2011 at 22:36

kwerk said:
What is ` for anyway?

Console!

kidding.

mjt · 24 Jan 2011 at 22:41

gazzab said:
Wow... I feel dumb , how are you supposed to put it above letters you've typed?

You can't. You type the letter you want with the accent. ie è à ì ò etc..

.Ox. said:
Console!

kidding.

+1

G-MAN2004 · 24 Jan 2011 at 22:43

mjt said:
You can't. You type the letter you want with the accent. ie è à ì ò etc..

+1

Then what's the point in having it on a key by itself?

mjt · 24 Jan 2011 at 22:49

G-MAN2004 said:
Then what's the point in having it on a key by itself?

I really have no idea and that's why it causes me aggro. Perhaps it's a programming thing?

What do you use ¬ and ¦ for? That whole key is pointless. Apart from ¬_¬
Some of those don't even exist on the US QWERTY, for example.

Snograt · 24 Jan 2011 at 22:52

It's a backtick - sort-of a grave accent without an associated letter, its only common use is to open the console in Half Life

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_accent#Technical_notes

Castiel · 24 Jan 2011 at 22:52

gazzab said:
Wow... I feel dumb , how are you supposed to put it above letters you've typed?

It's just where I've seen it used by people that way on forums and stuff I suppose, it's not something you'd notice with handwriting.

Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú.

Like that perhaps?.....

mjt · 24 Jan 2011 at 22:54

Castiel said:
Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú.

Like that perhaps?.....

That's not a grave accent

Snograt · 24 Jan 2011 at 22:57

mjt said:
I really have no idea and that's why it causes me aggro. Perhaps it's a programming thing?

What do you use ¬ and ¦ for? That whole key is pointless. Apart from ¬_¬
Some of those don't even exist on the US QWERTY, for example.

Hmm, my keyboard has ¬ ` and | on the top left and ¦ and \ on the bottom left. Thing is, the ¦ on the bottom left is actually mapped to the pipe too - | - so I really don't know ^_^

And Castiel - you're either using a Mac or X Window - or you cheated (in an acute way)

Castiel · 24 Jan 2011 at 22:59

mjt said:
That's not a grave accent

It's an acute one I know, hence the 'perhaps'.....I can't do a 'grave' on a HP touchscreen.

Castiel · 24 Jan 2011 at 23:00

Snograt said:
And Castiel - you're either using a Mac or X Window - or you cheated

Its an acute accent, not a graves one, so I cheated.....

steve-h · 24 Jan 2011 at 23:16

They,re retarded.

Snograt · 24 Jan 2011 at 23:35

In all seriousness, I'd guess that there a re a lot of keys on the "standard" board that no longer have a function but once did.

With UTF-8/-16 and ISO 8859 (I haven't a clue what the distinction is) - accented letters have their own code, so you type them by using charmap or by memorising their alt codes. I'd guess that when the IBM standard keyboard was first introduced, this wasn't the case and complicated ` sequences had to be used.

Obviously, keyboards aren't only used with idiot-proof user-friendly Windows apps - as I alluded to before, Mac users can use the ` key in combination with "Option-", for example Option-`a for à.

Apparently. I've never been anywhere near a Màc

bushmins · 25 Jan 2011 at 00:43

Its like people using ect instead of etc. Just bad teaching.

Razor-BladE · 25 Jan 2011 at 00:57

Never seen it before and it's just weird to do that.

gazzab · 25 Jan 2011 at 01:52

bushmins said:
Its like people using ect instead of etc. Just bad teaching.

These little things really irritate me... I know a few people who write asked when they mean arsed, and one guy who says aksed instead of asked :rolleyes:

MikeHunt79 · 25 Jan 2011 at 06:37

AJK said:
Or iPhone/iPad. Just as easy.

iPhone's autocorrect would fix things if you used a , instead of a `

semi-pro waster · 25 Jan 2011 at 07:37

kwerk said:
What about people quote someone using ' instead of " is that ok?

'this is a quote'
"this is a quote"

I'd normally use '...' to signify that it is something I've said or a paraphrase of anothers words and "..." if it was a direct quotation. Occasionally I don't for one reason or another but that's the usual for me.

apeZ said:
Going to use this thread to get a question answered.

In academic essays/assignments (uni level) when you quote others work (authors, theorists, researchers etc) do you use ' or " ?

"..." if it's a direct quotation.

Theophany · 25 Jan 2011 at 14:40

SiriusB said:
That's because in certain European countries they actually use periods to delimit numbers. Nothing to do with keyboard mappings. They use commas for decimal notation.

I know, I was just offering up two possibilities