The internet has seen many crimes against the human eye—Comic Sans, tiled gif backgrounds, JPEG artifacts in text—but never has it seen a crime so heinous as the common use of the back- and forward-ticks in typographic settings. While the differences between ticks and apostrophes may seem trivial, they exist and can make or break an otherwise solid piece of text. The most obvious of these differences is the direction: apostrophes, for the most part, go straight down, while back-ticks and forward-ticks are angled backward and forward respectively. This angle means that ticks take up more space than apostrophes do.
- ””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
- ““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
- ´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´´
String one contains 100 apostrophes, string two contains 100 back-ticks, and string three contains 100 forward-ticks. Note how the ticks take up more than two times the amount space the apostrophes do. In fact, the apostrophes (in this typeface) take up 62% less horizontal space than the ticks. This means that apostrophes are much more space-efficient in computer typesetting because they simply take up less of the screen than ticks. The use of ticks in context, however, presents a much more concrete issue.
It’s been a long day.
It`s been a long day.
It´s been a long day.
I’m sorry, I can’t do that for you.
I`m sorry, I can`t do that for you.
I´m sorry, I can´t do that for you.
Ticks, when used in the place of apostrophes, look terrible. Contractions are supposed to connect two words, but ticks are actually wider than spaces. This separates the text excessively, undermining the entire point of a contraction. Ticks break up text uncomfortably, resulting a reading experience that is less than fluent. Even when ticks are not used in the place of apostrophes, they are still not the best choice for the job. They present the same issues of taking up more space than the normal single quotation mark character. Ticks also look significantly different from double quotation marks, so mixed use of the two is stylistically inconsistent.
She told John, “Oh my god! I saw Martin Sheen at the store yesterday. He told me, `Do not be a fool.`”
She told John, “Oh my god! I saw Martin Sheen at the store yesterday. He told me, ´Do not be a fool.´”
She told John, “Oh my god! I saw Martin Sheen at the store yesterday. He told me, `Do not be a fool.´”
Since it is obvious that ticks are so inferior to other characters, why do we often see people incorrectly using ticks when there are better alternatives? On some keyboards, including the US INTL keyboard, the forward-tick is the default apostrophe symbol. This means that there is a large barrier between many people and using the correct characters. Sadly, this is not something that anti-tick advocates can do much to change. Luckily, most keyboards default to non-tick apostrophe and quotation symbols, stemming the proliferation of ticks into the foreseeable future.
With all this talk of tickish tyranny, the question arises of why the back- and forward-ticks even exist. As it turns out, the ticks were never meant to be used as standalone characters, but rather as diacritical marks that would put either grave or acute accents above letters such as à and á. They were later appropriated as substitutes for the apostrophe and single quotation mark. Though the ticks have found a legitimate home in computer science, they are typographically detrimental in nearly every case. They are ugly, inconvenient to type, and virtually useless when presenting a piece of text. It is time to kill off the tick. That may sound acutely grave, but acutely grave is all it was ever supposed to be.
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