[BlackDeath3]

I'm not sure if your "pretentious" comment was directed at todayiamme or not. If so:

If the idea of triple-quotes holds utility, what does it matter if it's "improper syntax" or not? I find your need to squabble over quotation styles pretentious.

[sabbatic13]

Well, I think the idea that one can deform natural language at will to conform to usage in code, and that this is somehow analytically superior is what strikes people as pretentious. Natural language is rather more complex than artificial language. The inability to understand what rules it has and deal with its ambiguities is simply a failure.

I don't personally care, unless it's in a context where the expectation is that the language will be, well, "normal." I just thought I'd tease out what I think is being the criticism.

In any event, this is a matter of punctuation, not syntax. As for nesting quotations, you want to alternate between single and double quotation marks. It's pretty rare that we go beyond two levels of nested direct quotations in English, so it's rarely ambiguous.

[BlackDeath3]

I agree with the sentiment that natural language is not something to be manipulated at-will for any old reason, but I don't see how somebody's preference for code-style disambiguation is either pretentious or a failure. I think it did what it needed to do, and provided the post with the author's own sort of "flair". I didn't actually know for sure what the quotes were there to do in the first place, but it doesn't really matter. Perhaps that was my failing.

The poster explained their preference for the triple-quotes in a clear and completely non-inflammatory way, and then got shit on for being pretentious. I don't find that to be acceptable.