{"id":23799,"date":"2024-12-07T12:44:57","date_gmt":"2024-12-07T12:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23799"},"modified":"2024-12-07T12:44:58","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T12:44:58","slug":"guillemets-goats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23799","title":{"rendered":"Guillemets &#038; Goats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What do you call these things <strong>\u00ab \u00bb<\/strong>, and do you use them at all?<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/waldopepper\/18857896384\/in\/photolist-uJpDAy-JF9Yee-e4PP6x-qL2s5d-63pAeR-qvL45d-6hT92c-deETkd-YEJQ3Y-YEHPVA-deEVHn-275XcAd-7r1xtc-5DEu9R-Ji3PBv-deEVRH-9MVkV-8bFdPE-qERHGo-Z8QUQ1-deWdBa-VyHdWK-24BxnyH-7r1vMF-efCGL2-hd2x8q-27ubgUA-9smfwd-FEAdPS-2aaHyqS-deETsJ-8wXtHo-4jbdai-YDNDDt-VyHdRp-2bNFg88-4gTra3-27FJQ2A-Gt4hfr-2NKzLS-7r1AV6-Z8QTZJ-6DGNLv-L3o6Gw-ZGJsZJ-9ejTd2-sfpaFM-29ESq4f-2gtYSS-2NKLtY\" title=\"Weird English?\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/444\/18857896384_b9f7e79ab8_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" alt=\"Weird English?\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>There are several names for <strong>\u00ab \u00bb<\/strong>, including <strong>guillemets<\/strong>, <strong>angle quotes<\/strong>, <strong>duckfoot quotes<\/strong>, <strong>chevrons<\/strong> and <strong>double angle quotation marks<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The word <strong>guillemet<\/strong> [\u02c8\u0261\u026al\u0259m\u025bt \/ \u02c8\u0261i\u02d0me\u026a \/ \u02cc\u0261i\u02d0(j)\u0259\u02c8me\u026a] comes from French, and is a diminutive form of the French name <strong>Guillaume<\/strong> (William). They are named after <strong>Guillaume Le B\u00e9<\/strong> (1525 \u2013 1598), a French printer and typecutter, although he probably didn&#8217;t invent them. They first appeared in 1527 in a book printed by Josse Bade (1462 \u2013 1535), a Flemish printer [<a href=\"v\">source<\/a>], and are used as quotation marks in Albanian, Breton, Catalan, Estonian, French, Galician, Greek, Italian, Kurdish and various other languages [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/guillemet#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The word <strong>chevron<\/strong> comes from Middle English <em>cheveroun<\/em> (a device in the shape of an inverted V), from Old French <em>chevron<\/em> (rafter), from Vulgar Latin <em>*capri\u014d<\/em> (goat), <em>caper<\/em> (goat) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/chevron#English\">source<\/a>]. Apparently, goat&#8217;s horns look like the rafters of a shallow roof, and the word <strong>chevron<\/strong> in French can refer to sloping pieces of wood used in roofing [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=chevron\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>I was inspired to write this post after seeing chevrons on the road while driving through Storm Darragh, which is currently lashing the UK with high winds and heavy rain. Fortunately, the journey went safely despite the weather.<\/p>\n<p>There may be fewer Omniglot up-dates and blog posts over the next few weeks due to Christmas preparations, and sorting things out after my mum sadly died at the age of 84 last weekend.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.japanesepod101.com\/member\/go.php?r=759259&amp;i=b0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/banners\/banner_japanesepod.jpg\" alt=\"The Fastest Way to Learn Japanese Guaranteed with JapanesePod101.com\" width=\"630\" height=\"83\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do you call these things \u00ab \u00bb, and do you use them at all? There are several names for \u00ab \u00bb, including guillemets, angle quotes, duckfoot quotes, chevrons and double angle quotation marks. The word guillemet [\u02c8\u0261\u026al\u0259m\u025bt \/ \u02c8\u0261i\u02d0me\u026a \/ \u02cc\u0261i\u02d0(j)\u0259\u02c8me\u026a] comes from French, and is a diminutive form of the French name Guillaume [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,10,302,26,34,73,216,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-language","category-late-latin","category-middle-english","category-old-french","category-travel","category-vulgar-latin-sermo-vulgaris","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23799"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23801,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23799\/revisions\/23801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}