Quote:
Originally Posted by frabjous
I always prefer curly quotes. In fact, there are certain fonts I avoid, even ones I really like otherwise (Palatino, KP Fonts), because the supposedly curly quotes aren't curly enough and easy to distinguish. But perhaps this is because I spend more time reading print books (or scans thereof) than material online, and it's easy to get distracted by what you're not used to.
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This, I think, is a big part of the issue.
Curly quotes are definitely easier to read & understand in print, and things like e-ink that mimic print closely. They're not easier for everyone on a small screen; in a 320x320 PDA screen, curly quotes are twice as wide as straight quotes, and that's *valuable screen real estate* I don't want wasted on punctuation.
Then I got used to flat quotes. I knew the coding issue online had workarounds, but it was a rare problem, because most upload programs didn't acknowledge curly quotes unless the author specifically coded them in. (Today, there are a lot more wysiwyg interfaces, and I see curly quotes on text that was formatted in word and then pasted into a web box.)
I like curly quotes in ebooks--but I'd almost rather a whole book of straight quotes, than more than a couple of instances of curly quotes going the wrong direction. And if I'm not going to take the time to edit carefully, I'll generally leave them as straight when I convert for offline reading.