[Corpora-List] Encoding of apostrophes and quotes

[Roger Shlomo Harris]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Artstein" <artstein at essex.ac.uk>
To: <corpora at uib.no>
Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 5:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Encoding of apostrophes and quotes


>> One thing that has always baffled me was why Unicode decided to 
>> assign the two characters U+05F3 Hebrew punctuation geresh and 
>> U+05F4 Hebrew punctuation gershayim. Geresh (dual: gershayim) is 
>> the Hebrew name for a punctuation mark similar to an apostrophe 
>> which is used for marking abbreviations; in modern usage these have 
>> identical glyphs to single and double quotes. 

----------

Geresh (single quote) is used to indicate an abbreviation. It is placed 
between the penultimate and final characters of the letter string: #'###.

Gershayim (double quote) may indicate an abbreviation but it is also used 
to indicate a group of letters which should be interpreted as a number 
according to the Hebrew system of numbering. The gershayim is placed 
between the penultimate and final characters of the letter string: #"###.

Curiously, the name of Rabbi Yechiel Babad, as it appears printed on a 
food package, includes a geresh in the forename and a gershayim in 
the surname. http://www.hechshers.info/hechshers/542.htm

Kind regards,

Roger Harris.