As a typographer one thing that bugs me more than anything is the use of the wrong typographic symbol for quotation marks and apostrophes in Titles and Credits of television programs.

I can understand that in the early days of video titling the appropriate characters might not have been available, but nowadays everything is done on the computer so surely there is not excuse for not using proper apostrophes and quotation marks instead of feet/inch, minute/second symbols?

Is there a stylistic reason for their continued use, or are the graphics people on TV just ignorant and stupid?

I cannot answer your question, but wanted to check you were aware of this rather fine little site from Jason Santa Maria:

http://smartquotesforsmartpeople.com/

One suspects the credit reels are the kind of thing that's left to the more junior members of staff...

But no matter how junior you are, someone more senior who knows should be checking your work.

I just think it's something that a lot of people don't know about. I see double quotes, both dumb and smart, being used for inches, instead of the current glyph. This seems prevalent in adverts for televisions, when screen size is being presented. Even in the same ad, there's no consistency between each product being shown (I'm looking at you, Curry's).

To extend this a bit wider, I see a lot of this kind of thing too:
Fish ‘n’ Chips
What is ongoing on here is that someone has typed the words and punctuation, and the software has automatically substituted open and closed versions of the single quote character around the letter 'n'.

In this case, though, the apostrophes are showing that a letter has been omitted, so they should both be the "closed" form, like this:
Fish ’n’ Chips

I expect that those checking the ads/subtitles/credits aren't really that bothered, or are just ignorant of this kind of thing.

I can understand why smart quotes are being used for feet and inches - that's because a lot of software will automatically convert the typewriter "quote" glyphs to smart quotes - and it's also the reason why the apostrophes for the n abbreviation of and are never right. I have smart quotes turned off in all my graphics applications and either type in the right glyph with the rest of the text or use the find function in an existing piece of text and then change them to the correct one.

It seems strange that one industry (video) should ignore this when another (print - or at least the professional end) seems very keen on getting it right. I can remember that using the proper glyphs was always drummed into us at work in the various design agencies I was involved with, and these days a large portion of my job is simply spent correcting mistakes like this.

I just wondered if the use of dumb quotes was in some way connected to low-resolution analogue video and legibility?

I see it in print as well as video, and even big names will get it wrong. Here are a few printed examples from companies who really, really should know better.







These will have all been approved by copy editors and, I expect, the Art Director in the agency, as well as those responsible in the companies for each campaign. None of these errors were spotted through any of the creative processes either. Considering the costs of design, production and even paying for advertising space (certainly in the case of Cadbury’s), you would think that getting it right would be key. Surely someone at the agency would feed back the problems to the clients if that is where they originated?

I rarely type quotes using the symbol on the keyboard, unless it’s code I’m cracking through. Muscle memory has been trained for many years to hit the appropriate keyboard shortcuts for each glyph. I’m making the decisions about which to use, not the computer.

Thanks for posting those. How can people whose job it is to know these things make mistakes like that?

At the last agency where I worked, even though none of our clients were quite that big or prestigious, a mistake like that making it into print may well have resulted in someone loosing their job.

Maybe I’m picky - but when I see those, I grumble about it. My wife is probably fed up with me going on about it by now, bit it’s important to do it properly and get it right. It doesn’t make the client look good if things like that are allowed through the door. Maybe people just don’t notice or care any more.

Those were all taken before and after Christmas 2014, so they are fairly recent.

Ahem.

What's the maxim again? 'Any internet post commenting on grammatical errors will itself contain grammatical errors'?

You're quite right. And of course it's far easier to see mistakes in other people's work than in your own. Which is why at least one other person should be checking everything that is being produced for public consumption.

I do my best to double check what I type, but being mildly dyslexic as you can see I'm not always 100% accurate, and TBH if I did rigorously check everything before hitting the submit button, I'd hardly be able to post anything...

Tell me about it. I'm also mildly dyslexic and I am the only native English speaker where I work. I wrote over 200 pages of technical documentation and translated the September newsletter this week and there is nobody to proof read it for me! I also did all of the translation on our website - an agency with half a dozen people worked on the German side and I was given 2 weeks to translate the lot into English! Translating marketing speak from one language to another is a nightmare and being given 2 weeks to do it, alongside completing your normal duties, doesn't really give me much confidence in the accuracy of the translation. I've been back and re-translated some of it, but I still think other pages are going to be a bit clumsy to read.

No worries, don't give an iota of a [LIFTED] really. Just it's the law to grammar Nazi against grammar Nazis

This irks me.
Click for large view - Uploaded with Skitch

The apostrophe in the word “’ere” seems wrong. To me it’s the opening one, not the closing ones. It’s niggled at me since they started this “no veneer in ’ere” campaign. They don’t have the advert I wanted to reference on YouTube, but I have seen one on TV which appears to confirm my suspicions as there are opening and closing single quotes used in smaller type on screen.