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AZJonnie

(3,735 posts)

24. MS didn't invent the characters that are the 'curly' quotes

Reply to eppur_se_muova (Reply #23)

Wed Mar 4, 2026, 03:41 AM

Mar 4

But it may be the case that Word was the first program (or at least the first really famous one) that automatically converted to them as you typed and sorta 'pairs them up' for you, such that the first one you type curves one way (an 'open' version, if you will), then the next one (in the same line) curves the other way (the 'closing' version). Like so: “Example”. I used the same key for both of those double-quotes, and Word converted them to an open/close pairing like that, that's where the "smart" part comes in.

I don't know that the browser's character set setting impacts this at all, I suspect the issue is already there before you actually see it rendered in your browser but I don't care enough to dig into it, nor know if I could even figure it out. If I was going to guess, it'd be a translation issue happening with the ODBC or JDBC database driver that connects the app server to the DB, which means basically at the exact point the data is pulled from the DB, before anything else happens to it downstream.

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Why are apostrophes -- or is it hyphens -- in some posts suddenly showing up as a scrambled mess ?? [View all] eppur_se_muova Mar 3 OP

I was wondering that too Lifeafter70 Mar 3 #1

Can you link to one? Renew Deal Mar 3 #7

It was earlier this afternoon Lifeafter70 Mar 3 #9

In your browser menu canetoad Mar 3 #2

Thanks, I'm using Safari at the moment. Switch to Firefox for bigger jobs. nt eppur_se_muova Mar 3 #3

me too, since this afternoon on a thread I posted and on a very old post. bigtree Mar 3 #4

Is this the thread? Renew Deal Mar 3 #8

That was one I saw but there were others. Lifeafter70 Mar 3 #10

Pasting one of the offending lines from that post: Renew Deal Mar 3 #11

Try editing that post and you'll see the issue AZJonnie Mar 4 #20

Just fyi ... Tasmanian Devil Mar 4 #15

On that page, I see the problem - I don't know what causes it. Jim__ Mar 3 #12

Could be tracking code that's getting passed through Renew Deal Mar 3 #13

You should re-post this in the DU Community Help forum. Wednesdays Mar 3 #5

Maybe you have a bad browser extension? Renew Deal Mar 3 #6

Unlikely, because Wednesdays Mar 4 #14

I had the same thing happen late this morning, when I cross-posted this thread highplainsdem Mar 4 #16

It's caused by editing or previewing, if you just paste into a post and post it immediately it displays correctly AZJonnie Mar 4 #19

It is happening with the 'curly' style single and double quotes like Word does, and it breaks in this way AZJonnie Mar 4 #17

If I tried to do a 2nd edit, the 2nd set of sentences would've gotten munged up as well AZJonnie Mar 4 #18

Thanks for working all that out ! I kind of figured it was a character set issue, and guessed 'smart' quotes ... eppur_se_muova Mar 4 #21

In my experience, it's really likely the issue is happening during I/O with the database AZJonnie Mar 4 #22

Thanks ! I've only done a very, very little C programming and know nothing about DBs, servers, etc. but ... eppur_se_muova Mar 4 #23

MS didn't invent the characters that are the 'curly' quotes AZJonnie Mar 4 #24