Re: Don’t let Swedes typeset your book cover
Don’t even let Swedes typeset Swedish magazines. They don’t really seem to know about quotation marks anyway.
The rule of thumb is to always use right quotes. Only ever use ”, ’, » and ›. If you do, you know you are quoting the Swedish way. Or are you?
The following image is an excerpt from Är det vi som behöver hjälp nu? (Kom Ut, number 2, 2011, p18):
It displays both the usage of right quotation marks (”…”) and inwards pointing guillemets (»…«). Within the same article. This typographical difference is not present in the online version of the article, which only uses right quotation marks.
Throughout the issue the only other place right quotation marks can be spotted are within ads. This is because they are the preferred way to mark up quotations.
So why use guillemets at all? Apparently they are the new in thing for modern typesetting in Sweden. (Wikipedia: Citationstecken § Vinkelcitationstecken)
Incidentally, the same issue also features an opportunity to correctly use guillemets. In J.K. Rowlings rån mot fansen (〃, p34) they explain the term slasha:
According to the aforementioned Wikipedia article single guillemets should be used when mentioning grapheme (single characters). Like so:
uttrycket kommer från tecknet ‹/› som
This article was published in re to Joe Clark’s Don’t let Swedes typeset your book cover because Martijn doesn’t like the Swedes’ increasing usage of alternative quotation marks.
