Is the backtick character ("`") used outside of computing in English? If so, what for?
asked May 30, 2015 at 4:42
1 Answer
No, it's not.
The backtick, or the backquote, evolved as a separate character exclusively for computer use. (Wikipedia)
It is actually a grave accent, used in combination with a letter in many languages, but not English, except sometimes to indicate pronunciation.
From wikipedia:
The grave accent, although not commonly applied to any English words, is sometimes used in poetry and song lyrics to indicate that a vowel usually silent is to be pronounced, in order to fit the rhythm or meter
...It can also be used in this capacity to distinguish certain pairs of identically spelled words like the past tense of learn, learned /ˈlɜrnd/, from the adjective learnèd /ˈlɜrn.ɨd/ (for example, "a very learnèd man").
EDIT: As Steven noted in the comments, loanwords which use grave accents often retain them in English.
Accents, sometimes combined with italics, are often applied to foreign terms that are uncommonly used in or have not been fully assimilated into English: for example, vis-à-vis, résumé, pièce de résistance and crème brûlée.
answered May 30, 2015 at 6:16
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Haven't you ever eaten pie à la mode? Or chicken à la king? Commented May 30, 2015 at 9:33
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@StevenLittman: Okay, loanwords do retain them, I guess. And I'm craving ice-cream now! Commented May 30, 2015 at 9:34
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4@Joe: Get real. It's been ten years since Nature reported that Wikipedia was as reliable as Encyclopaedia Britannica, and it's almost certainly better than that today (it'll certainly cover far more ground, in more different languages). Commented May 30, 2015 at 20:34
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The ` character is only a grave accent when it is attached to a letter: it is the letter that provides the context in which an accent is used. Otherwise the backtick/backquote is a separate character, regardless of the fact that it looks identical to a grave accent. Commented May 31, 2015 at 5:46
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The backslash has a similar history, invented for computing and now the bane of customer support everywhere. I hate having to say forward slash much like I hate having to say email inbox; it reminds me of my age.– chosterCommented Jun 4, 2015 at 17:52
`as the proper way to open a quote to be closed with'.`or``to be closed with either'or''respectively."is not used for quotation marks in LaTeX. For examples you might want to start by looking at this entry on quotation marks from the TeX.SE site