Re: Types of quotes in xref linkend references

On 3/1/26 1:44 AM, Pierre Labastie ([email protected] via blfs-dev Mailing 
List) wrote:
> On Sun, 2026-03-01 at 05:59 +0000, lfs wrote:
>> On Sunday, March 1st, 2026 at 04:59, Xi Ruoyao
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>> I tend to use single quotes as they are more friendly to
>>> translators.
>>
>>
>> That might be worth putting into an LFS style guide.
>>
>> Might even be "fun" to track how long it takes for the single-quote
>> count to overtake the doubles, although the singles are clearly
>> coming
>> from a long way back!
>>
> 
> Well, thanks for this thread, because I did not know about this
> translation problem with double quotes. Even recently I've been using
> double quotes, so single quotes cropping in has been delayed. Will try
> to stick to single quotes now...
> 
> For grepping, I suppose linkend=['"]... is enough as a regexp...

I've been thinking about this for a while.  As I see it, there are several different 
usages of quotes:

1.  In a command.  A lot of time single and double quotes can be used 
interchangeably.  As a trivial criterion, a single quote is easier because it does 
not require pushing the shift key.  Sometimes though the command can perform 
different things based on the contents of the quoted string.  We should probably 
prefer single quotes when either style is syntactically correct.

2.  In prose.  I looked it up and found that American English prefers double quotes 
by default and British English prefers single quotes by default.  We do use American 
spelling in LFS/BLFS so I suppose we should prefer double quotes for prose.

3.  When repeating a command within prose, then we should use the same style of 
quotes as used previously.  An example is in the "Command Explanations" section of a 
page.

All that said, I do not think we should make a special effort to make the quotes 
consistent.  If we are editing the page anyway and the issue comes up, then making 
the change is OK.

    -- Bruce

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