Quoting words as words

Posted on 18. Jul, 2007 by Daniel Aleksandersen in Typsetting, Web Design

The <q> quotation tag is meant for quotes only. It is on a style tag! However many authors use it for instance when emphasizing words with quotation marks. Here is what to do instead:

When emphasizing words you can use <span class=”style-quotes”>instead</span>. Leaving the semantics of the <q> tag uncluttered. This requires that you have defined quotes in your style sheet. Like this:
.style-class, :quotes { content: '"' '"'; }

Notably authors should try using strong and emphasized (<strong>, <em>) text instead when referring to words as words.

3 Responses to “Quoting words as words”

  1. Daniel Aleksandersen

    18. Jul, 2007

    Don’t you all just hate it when WordPress screws up even when you have escaped tags?…. I am sorry about the above post. I will try and fource WordPress to post it correctyl. However I cannot bypass the WordPress auto formatting. I think I have to update WordPress to get it to work.

  2. Benjamin Melançon

    22. Jul, 2007

    Wait, what’s wrong with using “actual” quotation marks?

  3. Daniel Aleksandersen

    22. Jul, 2007

    Nothing is wrong with them. But they should not be used to emphasize words! Quotation marks should only be used to indicate quotations from other sources.

    By the way: The quotaion marks looking glyphs on your keyboard are not quotation marks! They are prime and double prime marks. They are used eg. in programing.

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