Got Unicode?
Euroquotes
Language junkies know that different languages write their quotes in different ways than U.S. English does. You'll be able to use “Smart Quotes” – and even long dashes!!
Examples
What are "euroquotes"? Just the different methods of marking direct quotes in different European languages.
- Spanish Double Angle Brackets - «¿Qué pasa aquí?»
- German Low Quotes - „Sprechen Sie Deutsh?“
- German Chevron - »Sprechen Sie Deutsch?«
- British English Single Quotes - 'So she said, "What was that?".'
- See also Wikipedia Quotation Mark Page
Of course, the US English double quotes is becoming an international standard, but where's the fun in that? If you want Euro authenticity try these out.
Microsoft Word
You can get word to generate appropriate quote marks by designating a document or portion of a document as something other than English. To do this:
- Open Word, then go to the Tools menu, then Language.
- Pick a language (e.g. German or French) in the pop-up window. Now all quotes will appear to match that of the target language (even if you're really typing English).
- A side benefit is that the spell checker and grammar checker will switch languages also. Since I'm a lousy typist in every language...this is a good thing.
HTML Codes
There are special escape codes for the different quote marks. For U.S. English Smart quotes you can even use “ (“) and ” (”). Finally, no more ĀQuotesÁ on the Web! See also – (–) and — (—) for longer dashes.
| « | « (left angle) |
|---|---|
| » | » (right angle) |
| ‹ | ‹ (left single angle) |
| › | › (right single angle) |
| „ | „ (bottom quote) |
| ‚ | ‚ (single bottom quote) |
| “ | “ (left curly quote) |
| ‘ | ‘ (left single curly quote) |
| ” | ” (right curly quote) | ’ | ’ (right single curly quote) |
| – | – (en dash) |
| — | — (em dash) |