RE: [Emacs-diffs] emacs-25 26b56dc: Fix some single quotes in documentation

[Drew Adams]

> >>> There is plenty of precedent for straight quoting in other text
> >>> files in Emacs, as well as in etc/NEWS itself before today's
> >>> changes
> >
> > Is that because you changed `this' into curly quotes
> 
> No, I first changed etc/NEWS to use straight quotes, and switched to
> curved quotes only after what I understood to be John's suggestion to
> that effect. However, later discussion indicated that straight quotes
> were more popular, so I switched back.

Were identical straight quotes (') used in NEWS before you used
them?  I don't think so.  Except maybe for the occasional typo.

> Although grave quotes are popular Emacs source code they have
> never been the only style for all text,

In Emacs they have been.  Counter-examples?  Or did you mean all
text anywhere, including outside of Emacs?

> and straight quotes (though of course not perfect) are a better
> choice for plain text intended for users.

There you go again.  You think they are a better choice; OK, we got that.

> There is longstanding precedent for using straight quotes in some Emacs
> news items. It's not just etc/NEWS before the recent round of changes;
> for example, the NEWS entry for Emacs 1.4 (in etc/NEWS.1-17), circa
> 1985, uses straight quotes for its only quoted string, presumably to
> distinguish the quotes from the grave accents elsewhere in the entry.

Holy cow!  Talk about disingenous.  Anyone else bother to check
this?  Dunno what you mean by "its only quoted string", but I
found only the following 5 such occurrences, and these are
clearly all _mistakes_, especially when looked at in context:

1. Rmail command '>' goes to the last message.
2. included and letter 'F' had 
3. the new code letter 'D' which
4. It is like 'f' except
5. The Lisp function 'function' now exists.

When you see something like this it's pretty clear that 'F' is a typo:

 The value should be a string containing `-' followed by letters.
 The letter `l' had better be included and letter 'F' had better
 be excluded!

I checked quickly, so I'll grant that you might be able to find
one or two other occurrences.  I counted 5, but let's say there
might be as many as 10.

Now let's see how many occurrences of `...' there are.  I count
345.  That's 70 to 1.  Or 35 to 1, if we give you the benefit
of the doubt.

> It shouldn't be a problem for users if NEWS uses straight quotes
> from here on out.

Yeah, sure. "From here on out." Setting another precedent, are we?