Re: origin of `notation'

[Scott Burson]

On Nov 15, 12:01 am, Xah Lee <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 14, 12:22 pm, "Buchs, Kevin" <buchs.ke...@mayo.edu> wrote:
>
> > Ok, dumb question to which I have been unable to find the answer and which 
> > is distracting me:
>
> > In emacs documentation, what is the origin of using the accent grave 
> > (backtick) to introduce a quoted phrase, often a command, while using an 
> > apostrophe to terminate it.  Example: (info) Keys and Commands: 1st 
> > paragraph: "binding" is quoted as such, but 2nd paragraph, `next-line' is 
> > quoted that way. If someone who knows the answer will take the time to 
> > answer, I promise I will document it on the Emacs wiki. Does this extend 
> > beyond emacs? Beyond GNU & FSF?
>
> it's a hack of 1970s to overcome the lack of proper matching quote
> characters in ASCII.

Right.  In some old X fonts, actually, the two characters are mirror
images, though it's rare to see them done like that anymore.

-- Scott