0

There are nested single and double quoted words in a sentence I am trying to render:

``Mary had a little `lamb'''

In order to render it correctly I wrapped lamb as follows:

``Mary had a little {`lamb'}''

I would like a small space between the last single quote and the last double quote as if I was not wrapping lamb in curly braces, but they are glued together:

enter image description here

I.e. the first rendering is wrong, but good looking, while the 2nd is correct, but ugly.

Community
  • 1
ajeh
  • 2,572
  • This might help: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/73986/how-do-you-end-with-a-single-quote-followed-by-a-double-quote – Paapaa Jul 24 '16 at 15:09
  • It does, yes! But does anyone agree that the default behaviour with {`lamb'} above is a bug? The nearest quotes should be closed 1st, not the 1st open quotes. And by default there should be kerning just as in the 1st case. The point of using Latex is to abstract from rendering and focus on the contents. This behaviour is counter-productive. – ajeh Jul 25 '16 at 14:20

1 Answers1

1

I'm always using csquotes for quotations, it automatically inserts a small kern in such cases.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\MakeAutoQuote {„}{“}
\begin{document}
\enquote{Mary had a little \enquote{lamb}} % needs csquotes

„Mary had a little „lamb““  %needs csquotes

``Mary had a little `lamb'\kern0.1em'' %manually

\end{document}
Ulrike Fischer
  • 327,261
  • Not sure I know how to enter those on my keyboard :( – ajeh Jul 24 '16 at 15:15
  • I have defined a shortcut in my editor winedt (ALT+Q+Q) which inserts the quotes for me around selected text. That's fast and easy. – Ulrike Fischer Jul 24 '16 at 15:17
  • If your primary language is English, you may prefer \MakeAutoQuote{‘}{’} \MakeAutoQuote*{“}{”}. I also use an editor short cut for the first. (I can't ever remember actually using the second - I think I just defined it for completeness.) – cfr Jul 24 '16 at 16:59
  • @ajeh ^^ Sorry. I meant the above comment for you, really. – cfr Jul 24 '16 at 16:59
  • @UlrikeFischer Or perhaps this behaviour should be treated like a bug and fixed upstream, as all this sounds like writing boilerplate workarounds. If the default incorrect behaviour inserts correct kerning, than the bracketed version should do the same. – ajeh Jul 25 '16 at 23:38