ISO Latin-1 Character Set

[rbutterworth at watmath.UUCP]

According to old ascii tables the 096 character is defined as a
grave accent.  Some terminals and printers have begun displaying it
as a left-quote (sometimes like the figure 6 and sometimes like
an upside down 6 both with the tail pointing to the right).  Judging
by many of the net articles, this practice seems to be becoming quite
popular.  (On a standard terminal, the text appears to look more like
~~quote'' than what was intended though.  It is quite ugly anyway.)
I admit the left-quote usage is much more useful, but it would be
nice if manufacturers adhered to the official standards.

In article <6 at decvax.UUCP>, minow at decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow) writes:
> The ISO Latin-1 character set (ISO DIS 8859/1) is identical to the Draft
> Ansi standard (ANSI BSR X3.134.2) which is likely to be approved early
> this year.
>
> 039  02/07      '  APOSTROPHE, RIGHT SINGLE-QUOTATION MARK
> 096  06/00      `  GRAVE ACCENT, LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK
> 180  11/04  ''     ACUTE ACCENT

Are these going to be the official definitions?  I haven't heard any
of the discussions that went into designing this standard, but what
is here only seems to complicate the current mess.

039 as both apostrophe and right-quote is fine, since the two do look
the same (at least in English).  (Or 039 could even be a symmetric
vertical stroke like the double-quote.)  But what on earth is 096
supposed to look like?  The existence of 180, the acute-accent implies
that it should look like its mirror image, the grave-accent, yet the
existence of 039, the right-quote, implies that it should look like
its mirror image, the left-quote.

If the standard is going to provide acute accents, it should also
provide grave accents.  If the standard is going to provide
right-quotes, it should also provide left-quotes.  How do they
expect the same character to fill the two jobs?  On any standard
printer, we'll either get very ugly mismatched quotes, or get even
uglier accents.