[whatwg] Dialogue and inline quotations

[Øistein E. Andersen]

On 31 Oct 2006, at 9:26PM, Henri Sivonen wrote:

> If printed text in French (and other languages) works with the dialog dash style
> without visual hints where you put the <q> and </q> tags, why would an author
> want to go though the trouble of tagging the dialog like that and then making sure
> that any styling on the <q> element is suppressed?

In some contexts, direct speech is italicised (unlike other words that happen to be
enclosed within the same pair of quotes). Let me quote a passage from Le Monde:

> Le policier évoque son étudiant avec émotion. "<i>J'ai vite vu sa volonté peu
> commune d'apprendre et de réussir,</i> dit-il. <i>Il avait la souplesse du roseau,
> la volonté de répondre aux attentes du jury, d'adopter les codes culturels, clés de
> son intégration.</i>"

Here, <q> arguably would make sense (instead of <i>, which is what Le Monde
currently uses on its website). I cannot remember to have seen this style
in a novel, though.

-- 
Øistein E. Andersen