Why do UK publishers use apostrophes instead of speech marks?

Venusian Broon said:
my touch typing goes to pot in the dark. Which is utterly bizarre because I'm definitely not looking at the keyboard when merrily typing away at sentences when it's light in the room.
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Your hands and keyboard are still in your peripheral vision, I assume?
 
HareBrain said:
Your hands and keyboard are still in your peripheral vision, I assume?
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Yes, and I'm not perfect by any means so I do on the odd occasion have to look down when the typing breaks down.

However I'm pretty sure the fingers are (self-)trained to do it without looking, even when helped with peripheral vision. Just think of a letter - say O - and in this case my right index finger tingles (I've tried this away from a keyboard where there are no cues to work from). Think of another letter/key and other parts of my hands seem to 'light up'
 
Venusian Broon said:
However I'm pretty sure the fingers are (self-)trained to do it without looking, even when helped with peripheral vision.
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I wouldn't mind betting your brain has trained itself to do it with the aid of peripheral vision, since that was available to it all the time you were learning. Why would it make it harder for itself?

(Are we still in topic? What was the topic again?)
 
HareBrain said:
I wouldn't mind betting your brain has trained itself to do it with the aid of peripheral vision, since that was available to it all the time you were learning. Why would it make it harder for itself?

(Are we still in topic? What was the topic again?)
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Good point. I did try very hard when playing guitar to make my fingers work without looking at the fretboard - but I either a) it takes a long time and lots and lots and lots of practice b) these guitarists on Top of the Pops weren't playing live (noooo!)

If you want the topic, then I'll have the twix. I don't mind. :)
 
Parson said:
But then how do they delineate between dialogue and quoted speech? It seems to me to be an affectation which could sully the meaning in some cases.
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I'm not sure who the 'they' are, but it's all pretty simple (with no sullying involved):
  1. The doctor sat back and looked the prosecutor in the eye. "Don't take that tone with me, young man. I did my duty. When the President says, 'We both know I'm done for, so take care of the others,' who am I to disregard his wishes?"
  2. The doctor sat back and looked the prosecutor in the eye. 'Don't take that tone with me, young man. I did my duty. When the President says, "We both know I'm done for, so take care of the others," who am I to disregard his wishes?'
As it happens, I now use double quotes for my primary dialogue in my manuscripts, but that's for ease of editing, not the convenience of agents or editorial readers who I expect to seen both ways of doing it in the books I expect them to have read. (In the unlikely event that a set of submission guidelines indicated that one or other must be used, I'd submit what was asked of me.)

By the way, if the President in the above examples had quoted someone, their dialogue would have used double quotes (example 1) or single quotes (example 2).
 
I learned to touch type 45 years ago and back then I could easily find the little bumps on the home keys. Now it's not as easy and if I'm in the dark I can sail along nicely until I move my hand away for some reason[coffee: cookie: wipe sleep from the eyes]. Then I need to steal a look to find the home keys because I can't so easily find the bumps on the newer keyboards.[They really are there though.]

As for the single and double quotes I have found either way easy to read, but no quotes has me stumped. Now that I understand the differences in keyboards I can see where the UK might tend to guide the writer to use singles where the US guides for doubles. The US keyboard has single and double on the same key and you have to shift to do singles. The key being just to the right of the right 'pinky' finger.
 
tinkerdan said:
I learned to touch type 45 years ago and back then I could easily find the little bumps on the home keys. Now it's not as easy and if I'm in the dark I can sail along nicely until I move my hand away for some reason[coffee: cookie: wipe sleep from the eyes]. Then I need to steal a look to find the home keys because I can't so easily find the bumps on the newer keyboards.[They really are there though.]

As for the single and double quotes I have found either way easy to read, but no quotes has me stumped. Now that I understand the differences in keyboards I can see where the UK might tend to guide the writer to use singles where the US guides for doubles. The US keyboard has single and double on the same key and you have to shift to do singles. The key being just to the right of the right 'pinky' finger.
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Unless you have a very unusual keyboard you've said it wrong. The " requires a shift; the ' does not on a standard US keyboard.

I have the same kind of thing with touch typing. Once I have my place established I can close my eyes and type in the dark quite nicely. But if I have to lift my hand for some reason. I'm in trouble because i likely wont' find the forefinger position. (The old gray mare is not what she used to be.)
 
Oh Yes I do have that backwards or upside down. The single quotes are shiftless entities. So if I could un-train my shifty compulsions I could go to single quotes and work would go quicker.
 
Parson smiles! Does going through key boards mean that you are a writer?! --- At long last I've accomplished a bit of notoriety. My key boards always go before my computers.

The only good thing about this is that my grandchildren do not like using my computer because they can't find the letters on my keyboard. Too much of the paint has been worn off too many of the letters.

This thread direction has started me thinking. Am I fairly alone in liking my key board at an angle? My older lap top, which I like to type on best, has an 8 hour battery on it and therefore is elevated at a slight angle which I love --- hm, maybe 10 degrees? My newer and more dependable lap top did not have the angle and it was killing my typing. Too many mistakes and slowed considerably below 50 wpm. I bought a wrist support to elevate it, and that has helped considerably.
 
Parson said:
Parson smiles! Does going through key boards mean that you are a writer?! --- At long last I've accomplished a bit of notoriety. My key boards always go before my computers..
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A pretty good sign I would say. Normal keyboards I go through about four in a year. My laptop keyboard gets replaced every year ish.

I sit at a forty five degree angle (due to birth complications with my sons) and have my keyboard on my lap .... it looks flat but obviously isn't as my legs aren't.
 
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Just to return to the original topic - I noticed that my copy of Sworn in Steel by Douglas Hullic, and published by PanMacMillan, uses double quotes.
 
Every year that I've taught narrative, I've had this issue come up in class. I was taught to use speech marks, but I believe (and I could be wrong... never been bothered enough to check) that Australian print uses apostrophes.

In the end I tell my students that they can use either one and they won't be marked down as long as they don't switch halfway through a story.
 
House style. Some house style says ' and some says ". As long as you are consistent it doesn't matter. But depending on house style you will find ' or " surrounding dialogue :) hence why some publishing houses use ' and some use " even if they are in the same country :)
 
On purely practical reasons it strikes me as easier to use " when writing - because if house style is to use ' for speech then a global find and replace of the offending "s will get them all correctly. If you use ' for speech and house style requires ", then you can't do that because of all your other apostrophe use, such as contractions and the marking of the possessive case.

(For the same reason I changed from previously using a blank line for a section break, to using ~ in the middle of the new line. Much easier to find and replace a symbol like ~ or # rather than a space if required!)
 
I use * * * as section break when typing.
Later I search all double spaces and replace single space (more than once). Then replace * * * by version centre justified with two spaces between each * Looks OK on Kindle etc.
A variety of approaches seem to be used for section break. Best to use something easily search and replaced to suit publisher etc.
 
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