alt Hacker NewsExcept l has a specific meaning that isn't 1, while the entire purpose of ' and " is quoting (and apostrophe).
The equivalent of l for 1 is doing font-specific pseudo smart quotes with ` and '
Replies
opello • today at 4:36 PM
That equivalency only holds if there is a visual distinction in the output between the l and the 1. There often wasn't when this practice was popular.
" and ' are themselves conjoined with other uses.
" can be inches or arcseconds from cartography.
' can be feet (of measure) or arcminutes from cartography.
These actually all have slightly different symbols, and the symbols for the left/right quotation marks are actually farthest from this approximation, even if they are the most frequent usage.
It’s always been wrong in some respect to use a single available symbol to emulate three or more different typographical tasks, but quotation marks may actually be the one where the emulation is the most wrong.