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Why backquotes in GNU documentation?
From: |
Dave |
Subject: |
Why backquotes in GNU documentation? |
Date: |
Mon, 7 Feb 2011 23:31:54 -0800 (PST) |
User-agent: |
G2/1.0 |
[Not sure which newsgroup would be best, sorry for the spam.]
Hi,
I have often seen single backquotes in GNU software documentation. For
example, in http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_mono/libc.html
one can read:
Using `htonl' is necessary so that
or:
followed by lower-case `a'
Error messages printed by GNU software also often contain single
backquotes. For example, in commands.c of GNU make 3.82:
error (NILF, _("*** [%s] Archive member `%s' may be bogus; not
deleted"),
on_behalf_of, file->name);
Source code comments also have single backquotes. For example, in
commands.c of GNU make 3.82:
/* If the target is an archive member `lib(member)',
then $@ is `lib' and $% is `member'. */
And even in the title of http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html:
GNU `make'
Now, I was wondering what could be the reason behind this convention.
Why not use just straight quotes also in front of the quoted word? For
example:
Using 'htonl' is necessary so that
or:
Using "htonl" is necessary so that
-- dave