With narration of direct speech, both styles retain punctuation inside the quotation marks, with a full stop changing into a comma if followed by attributive matter, also known as a speech tag or annunciatory clause. In the United States, the prevailing style is called American style, whereby commas and periods are almost always placed inside closing quotation marks. Periods and commas that are part of the person’s speech are permitted inside the quotation marks regardless of whether the material is fiction.
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In Windows, if it is necessary to follow a space with a closing quotation mark when Smart Quotes is in effect, it is usually sufficient to input the character using the Alt code shown above rather than typing ” or ‘. Straight quotation marks are also retronymically called dumb quotes (“…”). There is generally no space between an opening quotation mark and the following word, or a closing quotation mark and the preceding word. In journals and newspapers, quotation mark double/single use often depends on the individual publication’s house style. British usage does vary, with some authoritative sources such as The Economist and The Times recommending the same usage as in the US, whereas other authoritative sources, such as The King’s English, Fowler’s, and New Hart’s Rules, recommend single quotation marks. For example, the journal Language of the Linguistic Society of America requires that the closing quotation mark precede the period or comma unless that period or comma is “a necessary part of the quoted matter”.
Scare quotes
Also, any punctuation otherwise required by the structure of the sentence is placed outside the single quotation marks. Using a period elsewhere inside quotation marks is correct if your quoted material includes multiple sentences. For example, if you’re quoting a passage that already features a quote, use double quotation marks for the main quote and single quotation marks for the quote within a quote. In American English, single quotation marks are used only for quotes that appear inside other quotes. One of the most common points of confusion with quotes is when to use single versus double quotation marks.
- For example, many simple text editors only handle a few encodings or assume that the encoding of any file opened is a platform default, so the quote characters may appear as the generic replacement character � or “mojibake” (gibberish).
- Periods and commas that are part of the person’s speech are permitted inside the quotation marks regardless of whether the material is fiction.
- When corner brackets are being used for quotations, quote-within-quote segments are marked with white corner brackets.
- With this older style there was also not necessarily any distinction of shape between the opening and closing guillemets; both often pointed to the right (as today’s French closing guillemets do).citation needed
- The French news site L’Humanité uses straight quotation marks along with angle ones.
- A quotation dash is also used, and is predominant in belletristic literature.
Quotation marks and adjacent punctuation
The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which may or may not be the same glyph. Quotation marksA are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to identify direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. In the TeX typesetting program, left double quotes are produced by typing two back-ticks (“) and right double quotes by typing two apostrophes (”).
Specific language features
If a quoted question ends in midsentence, the question mark replaces a comma. The placement of question marks with quotation marks follows logic. To add quotation mark to a word list please sign up or log in.
- Some authors claim that the reason for this was a practical one, in order to get a character that was clearly distinguishable from apostrophes, commas, and parentheses.
- When dealing with direct speech, according to the British style guide Butcher’s Copy-editing, if a quotation is broken by words of the main sentence, and then resumed, the punctuation before the break should follow the closing quote unless it forms part of the quotation.
- The quotation marks end at the last word of spoken text (rather than extending to the end of the paragraph) when the final part is not spoken.
- Place a comma inside the quotation marks at the end of a quoted phrase.
- Another style of quoting is to use an em-dash to open a quote; this is used almost exclusively for quoting dialogues rather than for single statements, and is virtually always the one used for that purpose in works of fiction.
Quotes indicating verbal irony, or other special use, are sometimes called scare quotes. If such a passage is further quoted in another publication, then all of their forms have to be shifted up by one level. Sometimes quotations are nested in more levels than inner and outer quotation. They were used to quote direct speech as early as the late sixteenth century, and this practice became more common over time.
Use commas to introduce or interrupt direct quotations of dialogue or text. Always capitalize the first word in a complete quotation, even midsentence. Periods and commas are placed outside the prime and double prime marks. Scare quotes (also known as sneer quotes) are used to cast doubt on a word or phrase, or to emphasize that the word or phrase is being used as a euphemism. Quotation marks are primarily used to indicate material that is being reproduced word for word, as well as some other important uses.
A closing quotation mark, », is added to the beginning of each new paragraph within a quotation. (For other languages employing dashes, see section Quotation dash below.) The dashes may be used entirely without quotation marks as well. The French news site L’Humanité uses straight quotation marks along with angle ones. The use of English quotation marks is increasing in French and usually follows English rules, for instance in situations when the keyboard or the software context doesn’t allow the use of guillemets. Neutral (straight) quotation marks, ” and ‘, are used widely, especially in texts typed on computers and on websites.
Another style of quoting is to use an em-dash to open a quote; this is used almost exclusively for quoting dialogues rather than for single statements, and is virtually always the one used for that purpose in works of fiction. In Polish printed books and publications, this dictionary-recommended style for guillemets (also known as »German quotes«) is used almost exclusively. Guillemet marks pointing outwards are used for definitions (mainly in scientific publications and dictionaries), as well as for enclosing spoken lines and indirect speech, especially in poetic texts. But the most frequent convention used in printed books for nested quotations is to style them in italics.
quotation mark American Dictionary
In these cases, questions arise about the form (and names) of the quotation marks to be used. In Early Modern English, quotation marks were used to denote pithy comments. Because typewriter and computer keyboards lack keys to directly enter typographic quotation marks, much of typed writing has neutral quotation marks. Typographic quotation marks are usually used in manuscript and typeset text. Single quotation marks are valid only within a quotation, as per Rule 7, above. Put the title of a short work—one that is or could be part of a larger undertaking—in quotation marks.
Since the 2000s, the plain quotes have become more common.citation needed The 2013 revision of the SI-1452 standard for Hebrew keyboard, available since 2012 in Windows 8 and in desktop Linux systems, supports both systems, as does the Gboard keyboard for touchscreen devices. In Israel, the traditional practice in printing and handwriting is to use „low-high” quote marks. Since these continuation marks are obsolete in French, there is no support for automatic insertion of continuation guillemets in HTML or CSS, nor in word-processors. With this older style there was also not necessarily any distinction of shape between the opening and closing guillemets; both often pointed to the right (as today’s French closing guillemets do).citation needed A line-break should not be allowed between the en-dash and the first word of the quotation. The symbol used as the left (typographical) quote in English is used as the right quote in Germany and Austria and a “low double comma” „ (not used in English) is used for the left quote.
During the Renaissance, quotations were distinguished by setting in a typeface contrasting with the main body text (often italic type vs roman). In the first centuries of typesetting, quotations were distinguished merely by indicating the speaker, and this can still be seen in some editions of the Christian Bible. (Despite the different code points, the curved and straight versions are sometimes considered multiple glyphs of the same character.) Question marks in a quotation within a quotation can get tricky. If a quotation functions as a subject or object in a sentence, it might not need a comma. Technically, spinorhino casino the mark designating feet is a prime; the mark designating inches is a double prime.