[Buddha-l] "Western Self, Asian Other"

[Alex Wilding]

Hi Joanna,
I think these things got born in the days when just over 100 ASCII
characters was all we could use on the net. The habit grew up of marking the
start and end of *bold text* with asterisks, the start and end of
_underlined text_ with underscores and so on. In fact some formatters now
will even take the things I just wrote and display them as genuinely bold
and underlined words.
I believe single and double quotes are simple and safe from virtually all
formatting tricks. Fancy quotes (66s and 99s etc.) can either be shown
simply, or can on occasion cause foul-ups.
                                    
All the best
Alex Wilding
Blog: Dang Zang (http://alex-wilding.com/)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-
> bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of JKirkpatrick
> Sent: Thursday, 31 December 2009 1:33 PM
> To: 'Buddhist discussion forum'
> Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] "Western Self, Asian Other"
> 
> Reading Richard's thoughtful exposition of Scharf's idea, an
> invigorating take on the issues at hand, I came across a matter
> of digital text that makes me wonder if my use of quote marks
> when citing something is perceived in other folks' screens.
> For example:
> ...........by _Buddhist apologists_ (not _scholars of Buddhism_,
> ........................
> I've noticed that some people as Richard did, above, use
> underline marks next to a cit., others use * marks, I use
> quotation marks. I need to know if quote marks are visible, or if
> they just disappear on some formats? Should I use the underline
> marks as Richard does, above? Are they more readable by different
> kinds of whatevers?
> 
> Sorry for this bit of punc-pedantry, but this has been bugging me
> for some time so I need to know.
> Please advise, y'all..and thanks for any help with it.
> 
> Joanna
>