Single quotes to double quotes?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

nothing wrong with the "z" ....

The OED, in fact, prefers "-ize" endings to "-ise" ones.

[GeoffC]

[AlbertaCowboy]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I'm sorry, you still haven't convinced me. Again, I read lots of books and ebooks from both traditions, and after a few words rarely if ever even notice whether it's 'recognise' or "recognize". I still don't see the point of going to all the trouble.

Regards, Alex

In theory, I completely agree with you. It is an entirely unecessary procedure. In practice however, I like to have my books exactly the way I want them. I much prefer double quotes. I like to use the letter u in colour, honour and labour. It's all down to personal preference. Is it important? To me it is. The funny thing is, is that I couldn't care less whether it's left or fully justified!

[GeoffC]

If you like the "u" in colour etc., then what's wrong with "z" ?

[WillAdams]

Another thread on this here:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74990

William

[bill_mchale]

Assuming the "'" are all coded using the same character, as they would be in a text file like the ones you might get from Project Gutenberg (and likely the epubs and stuff derived from PG), the following perl script will work. Just cut and paste it into a file.

#! /usr/bin/perl
# --- REPLACE the above line with the path to perl on your system (unless windows).
if ($#ARGV != 0) {
print "USAGE replace_single.pl <infile>\n";
die;
}
my ($infile) = @ARGV;

my (@lines) = `cat $infile`;


foreach (@lines) {
s/ '/ "/g;
s/' /" /g;
print "$_";
}

If distinct characters are being used, as would probably be the case with a more professionally formatted book, well, I would need to know the encoding of the characters, but that should be even easier.

P.S. Oh right... at the moment, this script just prints out to Standard Out. You will probably want the output in a file. On a Mac or Linux system you would run the program like this:

replace_single.pl orig_book.txt > new_book.txt (Note the .txt will be replaced with
whatever file extension we are dealing with here).

--
Bill

[lunixer]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Assuming the "'" are all coded using the same character, as they would be in a text file like the ones you might get from Project Gutenberg (and likely the epubs and stuff derived from PG), the following perl script will work. Just cut and paste it into a file.

#! /usr/bin/perl
# --- REPLACE the above line with the path to perl on your system (unless windows).
if ($#ARGV != 0) {
print "USAGE replace_single.pl <infile>\n";
die;
}
my ($infile) = @ARGV;

my (@lines) = `cat $infile`;


foreach (@lines) {
s/ '/ "/g;
s/' /" /g;
print "$_";
}

If distinct characters are being used, as would probably be the case with a more professionally formatted book, well, I would need to know the encoding of the characters, but that should be even easier.

P.S. Oh right... at the moment, this script just prints out to Standard Out. You will probably want the output in a file. On a Mac or Linux system you would run the program like this:

replace_single.pl orig_book.txt > new_book.txt (Note the .txt will be replaced with
whatever file extension we are dealing with here).

--
Bill

I ended up writing a macro that does it in MS Word. Doesn't catch everything, but it's good enough. And I always proof the books as I read them on my kindle and just fix them up a bit more when I'm done.

[Jellby]

Note that blindly replacin' single quotes can do wrong with some of 'em.

Depending on the book, there might be a lot of the above.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Note that blindly replacin' single quotes can do wrong with some of 'em.

Depending on the book, there might be a lot of the above.

Very good point, Jellby. The Dickens book that I'm proof-reading at the moment is full of such quotes in the dialogue. You can get some real gems, such as:

John said, 'Fred said to me " 'ere 'e is, late as flippin' usual!" '

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Very good point, Jellby. The Dickens book that I'm proof-reading at the moment is full of such quotes in the dialogue. You can get some real gems, such as:

Ack.. ok, that is true... but I did write the script in about 5 minutes.

If the writer is going to use devices like that, the issues get a bit more complicated in writing a script... and the script is unlikely to ever be perfect... I could look for punctuation prior to a "'" and that would catch the vast majority of cases. The remaining problem becomes examples where someone decides to "quote" a word or short phrase without punctuation. At that point, we are getting beyond a simple script and probably need some artificial intelligence.

--
Bill

[HarryT]

Yes, this is unfortunately one of those seemingly "straightforward" problems that, when you look at them in depth, turn out to be anything but simple! Turning "straight" quotes into "curly" quotes is even more complicated.

[AlbertaCowboy]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

If you like the "u" in colour etc., then what's wrong with "z" ?

My mistake, I grabbed the entire quote. I only wanted to quote "I still don't see the point of going to all the trouble."

I have no problem with "z", (except when other Canadians call them "zee's" not "zeds"...)

[lunixer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, this is unfortunately one of those seemingly "straightforward" problems that, when you look at them in depth, turn out to be anything but simple! Turning "straight" quotes into "curly" quotes is even more complicated.

No, straight quotes to curly quotes is easy. What I do is just convert the book to rtf and open it in MS Word. Then find/replace all ' with ' and find/replace all " with ". Word automatically makes them curly. Also, for those who don't know, Calibre now has an option to "curlify" all of the quotes and apostrophes in a book.

[Adjust]

I guess it's to each their own, type of thing...I personally like to see the correct spelling of words in the region I choose. Commonwealth titles being formatted using the correct spelling, quote makes, metric measurements (kilometre instead of kilometer). the commonwealth (well, where I am anyway) is becoming to "Americanised" as it is. (no offense to Americans here). I see to many people in my country spelling words how America spells them. When I read a book, these little things really stand out.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by lunixer

No, straight quotes to curly quotes is easy.

Of course it's easy, what's hard is to make them curl the right way. It's been a long time since I last used Word, but I've had enough of its "smart" things, turning to uppercase and swapping letters all the time. What does it do with 'em, 'tis and 'ere? Not to mention the Spanish custom of marking multi-paragraph quotes with closing quote marks...