Talk:Guillemets

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[edit] Comment

Do other English speakers really say ['geɪ.lə.mɛt]? I've never heard anyone pronounce the word, but I'd say something like ['gɪ.jə.mɛt]. <22 Feb, Utilitaritron>

I noticed the funky IPA, too. It doesn't look right to me and I've never heard it said that way by native French speakers. According to my Collins-Robert (ISBN:0-06-095690-9) French-English dictionary, the IPA is (using a non-IPA keyboard) /gijmE/. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 11:16, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I say ['gɪləmət]. Evertype 00:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
The American Heritage first gives an Anglicized gĭl'ə-mět'. I've been inserting a w--gwĭl'ə-mět--obviously a "spelling pronunciation" by one whose French is patchy at best. I've never heard the word said by anyone but myself or someone I'd given the term to. GeorgeTSLC 00:31, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In Adobe Systems font software, the word is incorrectly spelled guillemot.

Perhaps the clever Adobe people wanted to combine the word "guillemet" and "mot" (word)? Can the author be certain that this isn't a trademark or otherwise deliberate portmanteau? It sounds too catchy and makes too much sense to be a misspelling. My vote is to remove this from the article until it can be verified. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 11:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I suspect they were just mixing it up with the word guillemot, a kind of auk. Evertype 00:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Look at any AFM file for a Type 1 font with a reasonable character set, and you'll see "Guillemot" right there in the encoding. Here are some small excerpts from an AFM file:
C  34 ; WX  600 ; N quotedbl         ; B  154  337  448  579 ;
C  39 ; WX  600 ; N quoteright       ; B  215  317  396  579 ;
C  96 ; WX  600 ; N quoteleft        ; B  210  334  391  596 ;
C 169 ; WX  600 ; N quotesingle      ; B  243  330  358  579 ;
C 170 ; WX  600 ; N quotedblleft     ; B  107  341  475  596 ;
C 171 ; WX  600 ; N guillemotleft    ; B  149   44  453  407 ;
C 172 ; WX  600 ; N guilsinglleft    ; B  232   44  370  407 ;
C 173 ; WX  600 ; N guilsinglright   ; B  231   44  370  407 ;
C 184 ; WX  600 ; N quotesinglbase   ; B  199 -147  380  116 ;
C 185 ; WX  600 ; N quotedblbase     ; B  114 -139  481  116 ;
C 186 ; WX  600 ; N quotedblright    ; B  122  325  489  579 ;
C 187 ; WX  600 ; N guillemotright   ; B  148   44  453  407 ;
I really don't think that font encoding vectors are the place to coin "catchy phrases", plus Adobe is apparently also responsible for the "caron" botch. AnonMoos 23:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Or, you could get over it. Evertype 00:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Or you could stop trying to promote Adobe errors as so-called "standard" terminology. AnonMoos 10:18, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
The article covers and sources this error and its implications. (The source was added after the original comment). Notinasnaid 11:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Michael Everson's rather petty comment was a carryover from previous discussions at Talk:Caron, rather than specifically addressing this article. AnonMoos 11:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm tired of everyone complaining about Adobe's mistakes, is all. And my comment above on this page addresses the guillemot. Twice. Evertype 16:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
You made two comments on "00:17, 1 August 2006" -- one was pure hypothetical speculation, and one was in reference to some kind of grudge you hold against me for previous discussion on Talk:Caron. AnonMoos 21:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I made three comments, but never mind. I have no grudge. I've edited the article in any case. Perhaps to the good. Evertype 21:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linux systems

There where no instructions for how to do these characters on linux so I added some. Thing is I'm running KDE with a British 105 key layout and I don't have any way of testing if this works on other layouts or linux systems. Could someone please verify this isn't unique to my system's configuration? 84.9.55.42 (talk) 22:44, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Swedish?

I've never seen them used to indicate speech in Swedish... We use "..." as far as I know. not registered but yeah, Swedish..

You probably don't read enough :) It's used in Swedish typography all right. It's probably seen less use in recent years, but I think there might be somewhat of a comeback going on. The jargon term is »gåsögon» (goose eyes). 195.149.148.24 (talk) 11:23, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I've never seen it in Swedish text either, but then I mostly read English literature. The Swedish article on quotation marks states (paraphrased): 'Swedish text normally uses only the right-pointing quotation marks ” and ’, and less frequently › and ».' Thus, my opinion is that the article is misleading; it could easily be seen to state that Swedish uses only the less common characters. I suggest the addition of a short comment, explaining that the use is rare, or something else to that effect. Of course, Swedish shouldn't be treated specially, and any other language where this is true should have the same text. If there are a sufficient amount, perhaps they should have a category for themselves. 83.227.162.5 (talk) 15:08, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hungarian

I've never seen guillemets in Hungarian either as far as I can recall. If it is ever used, it must only occur under some rare circumstances. --CyHawk (talk) 17:32, 27 December 2008 (UTC)