Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Who on Earth is the LibO installation target?

Hello Astron,

Le 10/02/2014 23:23, Stefan Knorr a écrit :
> I think your look at this problem is very much informed by your being
> French and by your own professional perspective.
> My mother tongue, German, for instance uses far fewer apostrophes,
> especially in formal writing, as apostrophes most often appear in
> informal contractions (geht's = does it go, hast's = have you got it,
> ...). I would suppose that my apostrophe-to-single-quote ratio in all
> my German writing is around three to one. In academic writing
> especially, with its rigid quoting requirements the ratio in German
> (and maybe even in English) will actually tip in favour of the single
> quotes.
> Similarly, Angloamerican publishers of fiction very often use single
> quotes in place of all regular quotes. (Of course, they do have the
> advantage that their closing typographic quote mark looks the same as
> an apostrophe, I think.)

I can't give actual numbers for French but a hard guess would be around
100 to 1. The apostrophe comes everytime the article "Le" (mascusline)
or "La" (feminine) is placed in front of a noun or adjective that starts
with a vowel. And there are plenty of these ;)

> Well, sorry to tell you, but straight quotes aren't actually good for
> much. They are at least not the correct character to use for angle
> seconds [1] or inches.

Yes, you're right. But this is the current use FR writers find to that
character. Of course, the Insert > Special chars menu option is there
for that.

-- 
Jean-Francois Nifenecker, Bordeaux

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