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Grammar?

Can we have a little more useful grammar and style advice and less programming trivia in this article? The massive discussion on "straight quotes" vs "curly quotes" is really strange.

Well, this lemma is quotation mark, not quoting or quotation. Christoph Päper 12:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
It's a bit odd to call an encyclopaedia headword a "lemma," particularly when you're discussing a title that uses two lexemes.Grace Note 02:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Logical punctuation

I have corrected a very common misconception, which is that in Britain logical punctuation is used for quoted speech. It is not: Britain (and Australia and all others that follow British style) put the comma illogically within the quotation, same as American. Thus:

'Good morning, Dave,' said HAL.

I was astonished to find how common the misstatement is on authoritative-looking web pages discussing style and punctuation. These must be American, without access to whole libraries full of British books; or if British have accepted it without looking. I in London have just walked across to a library and opened numerous novels from numerous publishers. They all use the above style, never the following logical style:

'Good morning, Dave', said HAL.

However, this only applies to whole quoted speech like that. For small fragments, such as the following, Britain does use the logical style:

Also called 'plain quotes', they are teardrops.

Gritchka 09:46 29 May 2003 (UTC)

That surprises me as I was taught and have always used "logical" punctuation. I have always seen the above as an Americanism. I personally would write:

'Good morning, Dave.' said HAL.

Unless there was some continuation

'Good morning, Dave,' said HAL, 'and what a fine day it is.' he continued.

of course I could be unique in this, it is a long time since I learnt English at school.

The above is wrong, in that the full stop is the end of the sentence. If you want to use "he continued" after, a comma would be used, as 'Good morning, Dave,' said HAL, 'and what a fine day it is,' he continued.

The full stop in the dialogue is after “and what a fine day it is.” It ends with “he continued” because the preceding quote was a continuation of the first. —Frungi 01:44, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Me, I use logical punctuation everywhere, regardless of language. Most likely it's because of my analytical mind, but not having English as my first language might have something to do with it too, but I've never seen the bleeding point in non-logical punctuation. It's a counter-intuitive aberration due to hysterical raisins, and should be discouraged. — JIP | Talk 13:11, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Chicago Manual of Style reads in section 5.13:

"The British style of positioning periods and commas in relation to the closing quotation mark is based on the same logic that in the American system governs the placement of question marks and exclamation points: if they belong to the quoted material, they are placed within the closing quotation mark; if they belong to the including sentence as a whole, they are placed after the quotation mark." -- 11:48, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The article stated that logical punctuation for periods and commas in American English is becoming 'more acceptable' due to the influence of computer science. Although this type of usage may be seen more often for this reason, it seems hardly close to 'acceptable.' No manual of style or language guide would label it so. Therefore I've changed the copy to reflect that this type of usage can be seen more often, but removed the implicit blessing of the word 'acceptable.' 70.145.102.253 06:54, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, the American Chemical Society style guide prescribes the "logical" style, so it is definitely acceptable if you choose to follow this guide (as you should if you want to publish an article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, for example). However, I haven't seen any evidence that the increasing popularity of this style has anything to do with computer science. Itub 18:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It had always been my understanding (but I have no citations to back it up) that we owe much of our current punctuation practice not to grammarians, nor the guidelines of logical "rules" like those stated here, but to typographers – who established conventions based on the physical appearance of glyphs on the page. In particular, I understood that having commas and periods preceding a close-quote was for typographic reasons. Although it was often an illogical usage (and annoying for rendering precises character sequences such as 'abc' as distinct from 'abc,' as we do when dealing with computers) it was my understanding that normal publishing practice was to follow this format in all cases – regardless of the meaning of the text. This was typographer's folklore that I learned before the age of desktop publishing. It might be wrong, of course. Trevor Hanson 00:31, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Typographers follow different conventions in British and American publishing. Different publishers' house styles also dictate their practices (although hopefully the styles are developed by both editors and typographers in collaboration). —Michael Z. 2006-09-27 02:40 Z
Absolutely. My points were that there isn't such a thing as a national standard punctuation, and that typographers (primarily 19th century I would say) played a substantial role in establishing the various standards in use today (at the same time they standardized usage for hyphenation, em dashes, en dashes, standard leading, etc.). In other words, there were no National Puncutation Boards defining "logical style" rules. The rules evolved through usage, making many forms correct – and making it awkward to be didactic about 'correct' style. (I'm sure that most participants here share this view; but one sees the occasional "In the U.S. this way is correct.") Trevor Hanson 21:38, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Space before question mark

Since this page focuses on puncuation, I added a space before the question mark in the French sentence (Est-ce que vous...). This is standard before question marks, exclamation points, colons, etc.

--Stephen24

Good call, although it must be a non-breaking space, so that the question mark doesn't fall at the start of a line. —Michael Z. 2006-09-27 02:41 Z

Scarce quotes

I found it "ironic" that the sentence discussing scare quotes, used bold in just the same manner that scare quotes are often used, to emphasize a word or a phrase:

"Another important usage of quotation makes is to indicate or call attention to ironic or apologetic words, in a tactic sometimes called scare quotes."

But that's why I came to this page. What should I do when I want to introduce word or phrase that's technical jargon? Isn't this an normal case where people will surround a word or phrase with quotation marks? After the crash, the "hackers" then "bootstrapped" the system. "Lose, lose," they exclaimed! This isn't a great example, but this is emphasizing a word and setting it apart as a term of art, but it is not irony, nor apologetic. Is this use of quotes superfluous?

(Sorry if I "rambled.")

--Jerryasher

"My name is Juuitchan."

Why is it standard in English to write the sentence "My name is Juuitchan," but not to write "My name is 'Juuitchan'"? --User:Juuitchan

I think the later means your name is not legally Juuitchan, which happens to be true. So tire your fingers out and use the later method! :-) --Menchi (Talk)â 01:41, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That's just the way we do it. This is an apple. That is a heteroscedastic distribution. My name is David. Perhaps quotes would make more sense, but it's too late to change now. --DavidCary 21:39, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Since English uses an initial capital to denote names, adding quotation marks is pretty pointless. --Salleman 12:05, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Rendering bug in Firefox

I don't know if it is a browser issue or table issue or page source issue, but I get this in Firefox 0.8 under XP. The straight quotes, curved quotes, and german curved quotes are affected, the other two look fine.:

Fix it if you know how. - Omegatron 23:17, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

I use the same browser (on XP). Mine looks fine. --Menchi 05:08, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

There is a similar bug in Safari, where the row height is correct, but the text is shifted up so it cuts into the top of the table. It only occurs in monobook, and occurs because of "line-height: 1.5 em" in the style sheet. In both cases, the render sees "line-height: 1.5 em" first (in the body), and then converts it to pixels (I think), and then sees "font-size: 3 em", and forgets to change the line height to compensate. Further investigation shows that it processes the entire tag at the same time, so it doesn't matter if line-height appears before font-size (in the same tag). The workaround is to add "line-height: 1em" to the style in every line, but (IMO) the browsers should be fixed, not the article.

For example, <div style="line-height: 1.1em; font-size: 3em;">A<BR>B<BR>C</div>:

A
B
C

But <div style="line-height: 1.1em;"><div style="font-size: 3em;">A<BR>B<BR>C</div></div>:

A
B
C

The effect is more drastic in Firefox. Safari seems to render the table differently, possibly because it looks at the font size to determine the row height, but decides it can't shift the bottom of the line below the bottom of the cell, so the top sticks out instead. --Elektron 07:03, 2004 Jun 14 (UTC)

And the rendering bug in Safari also affects the Japanese/Chinese quotes, shifting the line slightly up. It's not as noticeable, since it doesn't cut into the table border. It doesn't seem to affect it in Firefox, because the row is tall enough anyway. --Elektron 07:07, 2004 Jun 14 (UTC)

Update: Apparently, this is correct behaviour, so it's not going to change. However, the problem is still with the stylesheet specifying "line-height: 1.5em" (the CSS spec states that this is to be calculated into absolute values, e.g. pixels, and that will be inherited). If, instead, you specify "line-height: 1.5", things work properly. Of course, since it's a <TH>, we could just add TH { line-height: normal} to the stylesheet (or then the height of the table cell would be too big). --Elektron 03:09, 2004 Jun 16 (UTC)

"Frequent overuse" heading

Isn't the new material under this heading essentially a duplicate of what I wrote about emphasis quotes under "Emphasis and ironic quotes" about quotes for emphasis, except with a sarcastic tone? Why do we need this twice? -- Tyler 18:14, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

erm. Potentially - feel free to edit mercilessly! Mark Richards 18:20, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

When to start a new line or indent?

Do you have any guidance on indentation and when to start a new line. For example A) below seems more logical to me (start new line with change of speaker), but B) looks better.

Which is better. A)

<long paragraph> ....and he walked into the room and said ‘ Hello, how are you.’
‘Fine thanks,’ was her reply.
‘Do you really mean that?’ he said
They then went for a walk.

or B)

<long paragraph> ....He walked into the room and said
‘Hello, how are you.’
‘Fine thanks,’ was her reply.
‘Do you really mean that?’ he said
They then went for a walk.

--Mervynl 09:24, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

B isn't correct because it fragments the sentence in the first paragraph. It is possible to use a colon before a quotation block but it is certainly not preferred in this case. There are other guidelines on quotations, such as not quoting two people within the same paragraph and keeping long quotations as separate paragraphs, but I'm not 100% versed. Davilla 18:44, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Font & display problem

The font Wikipedia uses (Arial?) renders “, ” and " exactly the same in the 10 pts main text. This makes it impossible to see that Swedish and Finnish uses only right quotes, as opposed to English, so I've added a paragraph about these languages. --Salleman 12:09, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

To be precise, this is what happens on a Windows box. On a Mac (which has a much more complicated font rendering engine) the difference is subtle but noticeable even at 10p. Your comment remains valid, of course! Arbor 13:01, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Corrected transliteration

I took the liberty to change nijyuu kagikakko, which is an unpreferable transliteration, into nijū kagikakko (standard Hepburn transliteration). Nice article by the way. --129.187.214.85 16:32, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC) ("FAR" at de.wikipedia.org)

Manual of Style entry under discussion

The Manual of Style for English Wikipedia currently forbids all other quotation marks than typewriter quotes. The argument for this was based on the encoding system (latin-1). When English Wikipedia moves to 1.5 real soon now that argument is nullified, so I would like to allow real quotes on English Wikipedia (they are allowed on other Wikipedias, like the German and French ones).

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Quotation marks and apostrophes). Arbor 17:52, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

New table of quotes

I much prefer the old table rather than the new one because it was less cluttered.—Tokek 07:13, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

First note that there doesn't seem to be any single verifyable source for this information. It has been updated by readers with first-hand knowledge. I would like to have added a third column to differentiate "common practice" from "formal style," but I wouldn't know how to categorize the ambiguous "standard" for each language. Feedback on the idea would be appreciated.
Now, I was able to change the table when I came to the realization that differences in quotation style can depend more on region than they do on language. I had expanded it hoping that people who edit the page would not overwrite pervious work. For instance, I would think that Taiwan and Hong Kong could easily have different opinions about what is standard, so a Cantonese person would only edit his line. (See my version.) However, my changes were collapsed (to the then new one you link), so I don't know if the region expansion idea would have done any good. The regional information was then just useless clutter. Davilla 12:04, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Okay, the reference number links are now appearing. Clicking on it works, however they still don't correspond to each other visually. For example, clicking on 18 takes me to note #2. This is still confusing and needs a bit of fixing. Also, do we need a new column for this? Maybe?—Tokek 21:05, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Grave accent.

The character ` is a grave accent, even though it has been often abused as a open quote. I've made a few changes to reflect that, and straighed some quotes in what is supposed to be computer code.Zeimusu | (Talk page) 08:06, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

do you have any sources that the character ` was meant to be a letterless grave accent originally? and what exactly is the point of a letterless accent in the first place for that matter aren't accents supposed to be above letters Plugwash 14:43, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd imagine it dates back to typewriters when you just wouldn't advance the printhead, so the ` and the a would be typed in the same spot, thus producing à (it's the same principle behind Unicode's combining diacritics, or the early method of bolding text on a computer, which was A[backspace]A, making A (as if a printhead typed twice on that spot)

Quote endquote

Does anyone know how proper it is to when reading "nostalgia"? For example, it is proper to say "quote, end quote, nostalgia," or if this should instead be read, "quote, nostalgia, end quote"? It doesn't seem that this article makes any mention of end quotes whatsoever. Theshibboleth 03:39, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

  • The way I see it, saying quote, end quote, nostalgia makes the word seem as written ""nostalgia. It should be said quote, nostalgia, end quote, making the word seem as written "nostalgia." — JIP | Talk 13:01, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Found comments

The following commentary was included in the article in HTML comments. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 16:40, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

windows-1252 is a common character set for English, could discuss that further, but there are lots of other Windows character sets too.
yes there are but the entire windows-125x series http://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/MICSFT/WINDOWS/ has curved quotes in the same places...

I thought double quotes were "British"

The start of the article claims that it is British to use a single quote and American to use a double quote.

In the words of Victor Meldrew: "I don't believe it." I was certainly educated to use double quotes in handwritten work in the 60's and 70's, and use them naturally in type-written work too. A quick skim of the BBC website shows some inconsistency, but double quotes are common. In the printed word, it may be that there is a difference, but in fundamental rules of grammar, I would say that it is untrue to say that there is a difference between the British and American use.

I am also troubled that it is suggested that it is British to write - 

He said, "This is a quote".

I was taught, and use - 

He said, "This is a quote."

and would never write: 

 He asked, "Is this a quote"?

It is an area for confusion, as there is an illogic, and I may not have been paying attention at school, and may not even be consistent myself (see minor edit!). I am happy that there are different valid rules, but it seems wrong to attribute them to being British vs. American. I'd like to see an British source cited for this assertion of how British English works. I note that this has been raised before, and yet what I believe to be a mistake remains. Reluctant to make such a fundamental edit without a discussion.

The way I see it, punctuation marks go inside quotes when they're actually part of the sentence being quoted. Thus, I'd write:
He said "This is a quote."
because he said a complete sentence, and its contents were:
This is a quote.
However, I'd write:
He said it was a "quote".
because he called it a
quote
and not a
quote.
Words and sentences quoted by other speakers are not quote.s, they are quotes, so they should be called by the correct spelling. — JIP | Talk 13:08, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
It's a far more complicated set of rules for punctuation, but if we just consider common speech marks (using quote in the example was a bad idea, and I don't disagree with your example) then the British convention is not to use a "logical" method - and there are a lot of subtleties and exceptions that it is unlikely that the common man gets them right. I'm not overly worried about a complete punctuation lesson - Eats Shoots and Leaves is the place for that sort of thing - but it is wrong to state that these rules are different due to the national boundaries stated - it is continuing an urban myth it seems.

I think I have found a pretty neat source to show that there is nothing modern about the British use of double quotes British Library Online Gallery. If you look at The Original Alice you will see that Lewis Carroll used double quotes. I will amend the page appropriately shortly unless there are any firm objections. Spenny 19:45, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Redundant translation of quotes

You know how people wiggle their index and middle fingers in the air when trying to implicate what they are saying aloud is in quotes? Well, I've seen people actually do that in writing. Such as (makes rabbit quotes with fingers) after a sentence. What's wrong with simply putting the text in quotes? Why translate your writing into speech and then back to writing? — JIP | Talk 13:04, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Doing the hand-signals is redundant, and any decent speaker should be able to use intonation to qualify the quote, even the sarcastic way that this is often used - it's a geek thing. In the context of informal, jokey writing, then there is no reason to ban such things, but it clearly is an affectation and doubly redundant, not a useful piece of grammar. Spenny 19:50, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Reported Speech vs. Quotations

In reading around the subject, I realised that some of the British vs American rules seemed to be due to the differences between rules for quotation and rules for reported speech. I don't think this would be common knowledge, but the various sources that pop up on the Internet do suggest there is a difference - so it is suggested that to be proper in British, a quote used to be single quotes and reported speech was always double quotes, though the sources acknowledge that this rule is not generally applied. Also there is a suggestion that punctuation rules differ between reported speech and quotations (presumably on the grounds that reported speech is under the writers control so readability is given precedence over accuracy). Spenny 14:03, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Avoiding curly quotes in e-mail

"[English curved quotes] are preferred in formal writing and printed typography, but in e-mail and on Usenet they should not be used because they are not present in the ASCII character set (which is the lowest common denominator for data exchange between computers)." [cite]

Is anyone using a mail program that doesn't handle quoted-printable ISO characters properly? I'm thinking curly quotes are safe in e-mail, and if there's no objection, I'll update the text to reflect that. —Michael Z. 2005-10-10 18:31 Z

They are pretty safe nowadays though ofc there may be problems with very old mailers or those who insist on reading thier mail by telnetting into a pop server. I've rewritten that peice to make it more neutral. Plugwash 16:25, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Ever tried sending and receiving e-mail on a mobile phone? It may soon change but not all moblie phones can handle the fancy stuff yet. Jimp 19Dec05

American English versus British English but what about the rest of us?

As far as I know every dialect of English but the American one uses logical style. Am I not right? If this is the case, let's have it made clear in the article. If it's not the case, let's have a more thorough coverage. There is more to English than the sum of British and American English.

Specifically what style do they use in Canadian English? One might assume that they used the logical style just as they use Commonwealth spelling however the U.S. may exert a stronger influence than I might imagine and that there exists two differing punctuation styles might slip the notice of even the proudest calling-a-zed-a-"zed"-and-not-forgetting-the-<u>-in-"colour" Canadian. Jimp 19Dec05

I find it rather POV to call it "logical style", and at any rate you're mistaken; Canadian English follows the US usage. I had never seen the single quote style until I first read a British-published book (probably a Doctor Who novel knowing me). PurplePlatypus 08:08, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Canadian English uses American style. There are rare holdouts. – joeclark 14:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

HTML/XHTML paragraph needs clarification

It would be rather nice if someone would take a look at the discussion of quotes in HTML/XHTML in the "Emphasis and irony" section and translate it into English. What's there currently probably means something to the editor who wrote it, but it really needs to be "dumbed down" for the masses. --BRossow 14:53, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Biblical references

"Sometimes, quotations are nested in more levels than inner and outer quotation. Nesting levels up to five can be found in the Bible."

Anyone have a reference for this?

--babbage 07:34, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The references are hidden in comments in the source of the page should anyone doubt the claim. Including them on the page cuts into the flow of the article. Would it be appropriate as some sort of footer?Davilla 21:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

References: [1] Jeremiah 27:1-11; 29:1-28, 30-32; 34:1-5; Ezekiel 27:1-36

[2]

History of the glyphs

When were quotation marks first used? Why are there so many different kinds? How did they evolve? — Omegatron 04:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

That's a great question. I'd looked into this a bit but couldn't find much information online, so left it to a more knowledgable contributor. From what I've found, quotation marks used to be written in the margin of a page, kind of like a symbolic designation of blockquotes. Davilla 21:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

History: reported speech conventions

"When quoted text is interrupted, such as with the phrase 'he said,' a closing quotation mark is used before the interruption, and an opening quotation mark after."

"I know in some of Jane Austen's novels (pub. early Nineteenth Century), pontificated Francis Crot, the interruption is contained within one set of quotation marks. I believe this is also the convention in French." Franciscrot 17:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Split this page

There's a lot of information here on the representation of these marks on computer systems. That's excellent, of course, since it couldn't be included in most style manuals. However, in my mind there is still that distinction between the proper use of quotation marks in writing and their graphical representation. I want to split this page into language-related style information, for English particularly, and machine-related typographical information. There is minimal overlap, I think, but I'm soliciting suggestions. Davilla 20:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

The distinction is between the basic typographical information--the types of glyphs, applicable languages, their spacing, etc.--and their correct use in text--when and how to quote. The first is a comparison of glyphs across languages, while the second is a style guide. Can anyone suggested a name for the latter, something along the lines of the use of quotation marks, or quotations in text? Davilla 23:45, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

There's also a related article at Quotation, which seems to be about the literature context. I'm thinking perhaps the "language-related" usage could find a home at Quoting, which currently looks more like a placeholder than the disambiguation page it's trying to be, whereas Quote seems to be genuine. Something to remember in any case is to ensure there are enough cross-references connecting these related if individual articles. --TuukkaH 12:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I am quite happy to see the split suggested by Davilla above and I would like to see the English usage and non-English usage in separate articles.Abtract 16:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
  • since no-one disagreed with my suggestion (one month ago) to split out non-English usage, I have actioned it. I may well have missed some vital elements in either article, so please correct my first attempt at a sensible split

I don't see any reason why these should be split. Space (punctuation) and Space character should probably be merged. — Omegatron 22:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

  • As anyone interested will see, the split has been made and we now have two separate articles Quotation mark and Quotation mark, non-English usage. I made this split for several reasons:
    • others had suggested splitting the article
    • it seems likely to me that the great majority of readers of this (English Wikipedia) article are seeking information on English usage.
    • the foreign language usage sections had become quite large in relation to the whole and distracted from the main thrust of the article (incidentally I agree that the same applies to the glyphs but I don't feel inclined to make that split, though I would support someone else doing so).
    • the end result (2 articles) makes for easier reference - all the English stuff together or straight off to another article if that's what the reader is seeking.
"No disagreements in a month" is not the same as a consensus. No one supported your split, either. I would imagine that most (like myself) didn't know of it. Did you have a split template on the page for the month? Did anyone else comment on your proposal after you made it?
The others didn't ask for non-English languages to be separated from English. They asked for glyph-related information to be split from grammar-related information. — Omegatron 13:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree they didnt specifically ask for the foreign language parts to be split off but the idea seemed to be that the article was cluttered with stuff that inhibited easy reference to the main part of the article which is the usage of quotation marks in the English language - this is after all the English language Wikipedia. As to the split template I think it has been on the article for some time. Anyway let's see what other opinions emerge. We have a position where there are now 2 articles and several edits following the split. It seems to me that these 2 articles flow well and each has a reason for existence but I presume you will now make a case for merging them? Incidentally, I agree with your point about space but that is quite different as one of the articles has almost nothing in it and I can't see how it could be expanded. If you make a formal proposal there, I will support you Abtract 17:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I am removing the tag proposing a split since I have on acted half of it (splitting out foreign languages) and there has been no discussion on the other half (glyphs) since March.Abtract 17:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

It has been a month since the suggestion to merge was made. In that time, no-one has supported the proposal, indeed no case for it has been made. I am therefore removing the tag today lest it languish there forever :) Abtract 11:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

There was never any support for the article to be split, either. — Omegatron 18:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
What do you suggest? :) Abtract 18:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps you should present a case for merging according to this rather than simply saying you don't agree with the split which took place over a month ago and has raised no objections other than yours. It is difficult to consider your case without knowing what it is. If you don't do this, or even if you do, how do you suggest we proceed? Do you want the tag to remain indefinitely? What do you suggest? Abtract 18:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I have made the splitout of glyphs as suggested above. Abtract 20:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

It is now 2 months since the proposal to merge was made and no-one has put up a case for merging or supported the proposal, so I am removing the tag. :) Abtract 21:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

No one supported or made a case for your split proposal, either. — Omegatron 15:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what I think of the idea in general, but several problems currently present themselves. 1) quotation marks, glyphs is not categorised. 2) That page is also near orphan[3]. 3) The article title doesn't appear to adhere to the Manual of Style. However, probably the biggest issue is that with this split, the lead paragraph of this page now reads like a disambiguation page. A more appropriate way of dealing with it would be to have a short section describing glyphs, and a short section describing non-English useage with a "see main article" link (e.g., ADHD#Controversy). --Limegreen 20:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems very clear to me as it is but then I wrote it so I may not be the best person to judge; if you wish, show us what you mean, retitle the article, add the paragraphs, do the edit.Abtract 01:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Computer languages

The page currently lists php as using single/double straight quotes interchangeably, but php interpolates double-quoted strings. [4]

Quotes within Quotes: Discuss

For quotes within quotes, spaces are unnecessary; when you start a single open quote (i.e. ‘) within a double open quote (i.e. “), it is understood that at if the single end quote ends with the sentence, there will be three end quote marks placed after the comma or period (i.e. ,’” or .’”) and before a colon or semicolon (’”: or ’”;). Thus, a space between the ending single and double quotes (i.e. ’ ”) is superfluous, making it look awkward. Besides, where is documentation in proof of this claim? Search Google and you will see examples supporting a no-space rule. Also, you will never see a newspaper or magazine use a space between ending single and double quotation marks. Perhaps in academia, but never otherwise. This looks awkward: (“‘awkward.’ ”) and so does (“ ‘awkward.’ ”); but this looks fine: (“‘fine.’”)

Original research/references

I've tagged this article as original research. Perhaps I've overreacted and should just have tagged it as unreferenced. But it seems to me that all the wonderful, patient discussion on this page fails to cite any proper references, and is hence dubious. mgekelly 12:36, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you are overreacting. I think the target for this page should be that the reader should be confident in the advice. As a British person with some competence in punctuation, I am troubled by the various statements of British use, which we would not recognise as such. I did some looking around and I can understand the problem, a lot of the information on the web is American and casually states that there are some British English rules, yet these don't seem to conform to what I understand as the rules. Also, I know that there is not a good understanding of what the rules are supposed to be, so it is difficult to distinguish between proper and common usage (I avoid the word correct deliberately). Spenny 17:09, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Another point I don't see made strongly enough here is that there is rarely a single set of rules governing usage, particularly such fundamental usage as punctuation. Surely the punctuation rules applied to a scholarly journal are not the same as those enforced by a newspaper editor, a mass-market book publisher, a teacher at a public school, etc. Is one set of rules correct, and the others simply debased forms? Is there some Platonic superset of rules that constitutes ideal puncutation? I think not. This kind of objectivist position was strong in the Victorian era but has less credibility today. Punctuation is, like other aspects of language, a living thing representing the consensus of practitioners. Trevor Hanson 00:22, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Y?ou sa!id "it!. :P" --Ryan Heuser 15:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Marking a foreign vocabulary

Is it correct to use German or English quotation marks around 'Auto' when writing "The German word ‘Auto’ means ‘car’."? - 80.141.241.19 14:30, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Generally, use the punctuation of the ‘outer’ language so the example above is correct, as is Das englische Wort „car“ bedeutet „Auto“. Zeimusu | Talk page 14:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

How are punctuations used in quotes that are followed by citations?

This could be included in this article because in scientific writing, this situation is often encountered. For example (observe the full-stops used here), which is the correct way to include the following citation -- "cold-blooded but prefers to eat hot-blooded animals." in the following sentences?:

The iguana is said to be "cold-blooded but prefers to eat hot-blooded animals." (Simon and Garfunkel, 1970).

OR

The iguana is said to be "cold-blooded but prefers to eat hot-blooded animals" (Simon and Garfunkel, 1970).

Note that the full-stop is within the quotes and outside the quotes here. Which is the correct

As far as I'm aware - either...let me explain - because the "." is in the quotation marks, it is self-contained and doesn't actually end the sentence. If it were to be the end of a sentence, you need to add another fullstop at the end anyway - ie: The iguana is said to be "cold-blooded but prefers to eat hot-blooded animals.". If it's a fullstop at the end of a quotation before the quotation marks end, it doesn't actually end the whole sentence - just the sentence within the quotation marks. Put in the fullstop if there is a fullstop after the word "animals" or don't is there isn't - and put one at the very end of YOUR sentence (after the citation) as well. Although I'm English and use the British rule - I doubt it matters so much that someone of another nationality would think it's completely, utterly wrong. --Andyroo316 18:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
This last section was copied from Talk:Quotation mark, non-English usage byAbtract 19:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Emphasis (strongly discouraged and incorrect)

My understanding was that the use of quotes for emphasis is not so much incorrect as archaic. It has just gone out of typographic fashion. I don't remember where I read this though, so I don't have a source to add. At least one of the sources for the emphasis section is not really what I count as cite-able. It's just someone's blog making fun of a sign that uses quotes for emphasis because it's funny if you read it with the sarcastic bent. However, I think taking something in quotes as having sarcastic meaning is a relatively recent usage. Hopefully some typography geek who knows of some authoritative source will comment or update it.

incorrect US and UK punctuation info

The American convention is for sentence punctuation to be included inside the quotation marks, even if the punctuation is not part of the quoted sentence, while the British style shows clearly whether or not the punctuation is part of the quoted phrase:

Did someone shout “Shut up”? (British)

Did someone shout “Shut up?” (American)

This and the examples are patent nonsense. More specifically, the second example is incorrect unless "shut up" was shouted as a question. The mentioned US difference only applies to commas and periods. In both UK and US spelling, both examples can be used, but they have different meanings and are not equivalent, but it is of course rare for someone to shout "shut up" as a question. So the normal punctuation in both systems would be Did someone shout "shut up"? (or Did someone shout "shut up!"?).

The Chicago Manual of Style reads in section 5.13: "The British style of positioning periods and commas in relation to the closing quotation mark is based on the same logic that in the American system governs the placement of question marks and exclamation points: if they belong to the quoted material, they are placed within the closing quotation mark; if they belong to the including sentence as a whole, they are placed after the quotation mark."

see also http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/quotation_marks.html

http://www2.ncsu.edu:8010/ncsu/grammar/Quotes3.html

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/quotation.htm

In addition British style shows clearly whether or not the punctuation is part of the quoted phrase is not true at all times; UK style also illogically uses a comma inside quoted direct speech that precedes other material in the same sentence. This means that direct speech retains punctuation inside the quotation marks in BrE also, with a full stop changing into a comma if followed by explanatory text. American_and_British_English_differences http://www.bbc.co.uk/branding/pdf/writing_style_guidelines_jan06.pdf

This was already pointed out before on this talk page, but it seems the corresponding part was removed from the article: I have corrected a very common misconception, which is that in Britain logical punctuation is used for quoted speech. It is not: Britain (and Australia and all others that follow British style) put the comma illogically within the quotation, same as American. Thus: 'Good morning, Dave,' said HAL. --Espoo 09:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard about this. I'm English, and at my school during KS3 English (4 years ago) we were always taught to put the punctuation inside the "speech marks." 82.33.114.9 10:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

single quotes vs. double - the style I use

I use single quotes when a concept is being referred to:

The ‘experience lens’, draws on the strategic experience of the organisation

But double quotes when speech is used:

Bob commented that "they use the Experience Lens too much"

I see this style increasingly.

I wasn't clear what the article's position on single vs. double is

80.229.242.179 16:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

single quotes vs. double - example

Just an example of this style:

years of continuous success leads many managers to ignore external crises because they perceive them to be 'temporary' or 'inconsequential'


So it's immediately clear that we are dealing with concepts, with abstractions, and not with somebody's words. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.229.242.179 (talk) 17:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

Curly quotes on Mac OS

Can someone tell me how you can easily produce them on WP on a Mac? (That is, just with a single keystroke?) Tony 07:35, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Glyph Description Keys
“ (left double quote, high-66) Option + [
” (right double quote, high-99) Option + { = Option + Shift + [
‘ (left single quote, high-6) Option + ]
’ (right single quote, high-9, apostrophe) Option + } = Option + Shift + ]
This should work with all UK and US, QWERTY and DVORAK layouts, although the physical key positions may vary amongst them. The Option key is also known as the Alt key. Christoph Päper 10:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


Thanks SO much, Christoph! It works! Tony 10:56, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it does work, but then why are the double and single quotes switched around on the article's actual chart?
How to type quotation marks (and apostrophes) on a computer keyboard
  Macintosh key combinations Windows key combinations Linux (X) keys HTML decimal
Single opening  ‘  Option + [ Alt + 0145 (on number pad) Compose < ' or Alt Gr + Shift + V &#8216;
Single closing (& apostrophe)  ’  Option + Shift + [ Alt + 0146 (on number pad) Compose > ' or Alt Gr + Shift + B &#8217;
Double opening  “  Option + ] Alt + 0147 (on number pad) Compose < " or Alt Gr + V &#8220;
Double closing  ”  Option + Shift + ] Alt + 0148 (on number pad) Compose > " or Alt Gr + B &#8221;
This chart gives the single quotation marks as Option + [ and Option + Shift + [, and vice versa for the double quotations, which is wrong, as our keyboards have demonstrated. It's the other way around, as Christoph's chart shows. So I'm changing it. NoriMori (talk) 20:11, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Query with a query

   Did he say, “Good morning, Dave”?
   No, he said, “Where are you, Dave?”

Happy with those. How about: 

   Are you sure he said, "Where are you, Dave?"

? (not even sure if I should have 3 in this paragraph!).

Spenny 09:59, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the real rule is, a question mark or exclamation takes priority over a full stop, so the full stop would be the one omitted. Then if both are the same character, it goes on the inside. If one is a question mark, and the other is an exclamation mark, keep both. He actually said "Really?"! Generally, omitting a full stop loses no meaning in the sentence. In that sentence one would surely not omit the question mark, since that would loose meaning, as other wise one would not know if "Really.", "Really?", or "Really!" was intended. (Actually the exclamation point outside the quote would rule out the last one.) One would not remove the exclamation point at the end either, for one would loose meaning there too. Ideally one would never omit the punctuation at all (that would be the simplest rule), but Are you sure he said, "Where are you, Dave?"? looks a bit odd. HTH. 71.2.110.131 (talk) 18:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Terminology

According to my dictionary (Canadian Oxford), "quote" is an informal noun, usually plural when referring to quotation marks (this is the third sense of three for the word).

At best the noun "quote" should be used carefully to avoid confusion, but perhaps in an encyclopedic article it should not be used at all. (The verb "to quote" is okay, however.)

Examples:

  • Quotation mark is the symbol
  • Quotation is the text quoted, never the mark
  • To quote is to repeat verbatim, or perhaps to put into quotation marks

But:

  • In quotes clearly refers to quotation marks, but the informal use should be discouraged
  • Quotes in other contexts can be completely unclear, and is to be avoided ("omitting quotes is generally not recommended"—what does that mean?)
  • A quote is usually a quotation, not a quotation mark, but better to write unambiguously: "a quotation"
  • Quote mark is not in the dictionary, and should be avoided
  • Speech mark—is this a word at all?

 —Michael Z. 2007-08-27 13:56 Z

Speech marks

"Speech marks"? Is this verifiable in any dictionary or encyclopedia? Sounds like a mistake to me. —Michael Z. 2007-08-27 14:02 Z

In the UK, speech marks is common usage. Check a Google search and you will see a number of primary school resources using the phrase. I think it is likely that small children can cope with the concept of marking speech, whereas quotations is a more complicated idea. The formal British English name is Inverted Comma. Spenny 07:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Should this article be amended to note the difference in terminology between British and American English i.e British use 'inverted commas'/'double inverted commas' and Americans use 'quotes'/'double quotes'?Gwolfe28 (talk) 17:24, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Important advice forwarded from Jeffery O. Gustafson

LOOK:

IT IS

." or !" or ?" or ,"

NOT

". or "! or "? or ",

So then, how do we make it appear as urgently on this article while keeping it looking encyclopedic? --129.130.38.119 03:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this counts as talk-page vandalism, and think it should be removed, or the font size changed to something more sensible. It's also largely a matter of style. I stick punctuation where it semantically makes sense, except in formal writing where people might look at me funny, hence "Feel Good Inc.". ⇌Elektron 14:23, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Straight v Curved

I remember I was reading this page last year and it mentioned proper/accepted usage for straight and curved quotes. This article doesn't even differentiate between them. Am I mistaken? — mattrobs 10:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

If you publish a book with straight quotes in place of curly quotes, everyone will look at you funny. Straight quotes exist largely because they had to compromise a lot when they made ASCII. They tend to be easier to type, and show up "correctly" on most systems (but then, the use of random Unicode characters is so widespread that it doesn't really matter). They're never correct, but sometimes you have to use them (e.g. coding) or might as well, in case it doesn't show up correctly (IRC), or can't be bothered to type the correct character. You can also use straight single quotes to differentiate apostrophes from closing single quotes, but that's another story. ⇌Elektron 02:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Why isn't this mentioned in the article? — mattrobs 04:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

This stuff has been recently split off into a separate article, Quotation mark glyphs. The straight ("neutral") quotation marks predate ASCII by perhaps a hundred years: they were invented for the typewriter. —Michael Z. 2007-09-18 07:45 Z

The dividing comma

Has anyone got a good source for the issue of the comma used to divide the quotation from the surrounding sentence where there is no natural punctuation in the quotation? I guess proper style would be to place the surrounding text appropriately.

e.g.

(1) "He was running," he said, "through the park."

or

(2) "He was running" he said, "through the park."

or

(3) "He was running" he said "through the park."

Most people would use (1) but I believe that (2) is held to be grammatically correct. Most style guides apparently recommend (1). Has anyone got a good (set of) source(s) on this? The one I found was Australian and I simply do not know if Australian, British and US English diverge on this issue.

Another variation to consider is

(5) He said, "I am running through the park." vs. (6) He said "I am running through the park." Spenny 17:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd recommend against putting a "he said" where there is not meant to be a pause in the speech - it makes it harder to read. In most literature, I always see (1). Traditionally, punctuation is always moved inside the quote whether it semantically belongs there or not, so (1) would still be "correct". (5/6) is something I avoid. There's also the "he said" vs "said he", and "A said" vs "said A". ⇌Elektron 13:02, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
How should these be punctuated if it's a seperate sentence followed by another? Such as, say...
"You're not supposed to be here," he said. "Why are you here?"
Now, how should that be punctuated? If it's two distinct sentences (identical to, say, "You're not supposed to be here. Why are you here?" he said.) should there be a comma after 'here' or a period after 'here'? Should 'he' be capitalized if the first quote is comma'd off, or perioded off, or not at all? Should there be a period or a comma after said, does it matter if the entire quotation is two sentences broken in the middle or one sentence broken in half (like "You're not supposed to be here, why are you here?" he said.) Should 'Why' be capitalized? If there are additional sentences after the speaker attribution, does that change anything? (as if, "You're not supposed to be here," he said. "This area is strictly off-limits. Who are you? Why are you here? What are you doing with that beaker?" or some such) The article isn't really clear when you should use commas in a quote, or how the letters should be capitalized (again, divided into 'American' and 'British' usage if need be) whereas right now there's nothing to suggest that there would be any other way to put it. PolarisSLBM 17:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Don't forget this is an encyclopedia not an instruction manual. :) Abtract 22:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Hart's rules

  • You made what to me seemed a strange edit in the Quotation mark article. It seems to have done no harm but I would like to understand it if you care to explain? :) Abtract 22:16, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
  • My intent was to linkify the book's name. When I went to the book's Wikipedia article, it appeared to give the book's name as I wikified it. In preparing a reply to your question, I looked at the book's home page as given in the article. There I found that it was less clear. The book went through 39 editions over 90 years. The following editions had actual images of the title page.
Publication Edition Title
March 1893 broadsheet Rules for Compositors and Readers, which are to be observed in all cases where no special instructions are given
April 1893 1st Rules for Compositors and Readers, which are to be observed in all cases where no special instructions are given
January 1896 5th Rules for Compositors and Readers Employed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford
January 1901 10th Rules for Compositors and Readers Employed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford
January 1902 12th Rules for Compositors and Readers Employed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford
March 1904 15th Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
July 1905 19th Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
January 1909 21st Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
January 1914 23rd Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
May 1930 29th Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
December 1938 30th Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
December 1938 31st Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
February 1946 33rd Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
June 1948 34th Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
July 1950 35th Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
1952 36th Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
1954 36th, 1st reprint Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
1957 36th, 2nd reprint Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
1961 36th, 3rd reprint Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
1967 37th Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
1978 38th Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
1983 39th Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
2002 new The Oxford Guide to Style (OGS)

What is the correct title? Well, the book's own web site refers to the different editions generically as Hart's Rules. What do you think?--JoeFriday (talk) 03:47, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

OMG ... thanks but all I meant was why did you change it from this - Hart's Rules - to this - Hart's Rules ? (you will have to go into edit mode to see what I mean. Abtract 06:54, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

  • I didn't consciously do that. It wasn't linkified before. When I linkified it, I absent mindedly copied the link name from the browser's address bar instead of from the article heading.--JoeFriday (talk) 10:59, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
OK thanks ... I thought I was missing something. Abtract 13:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Another typographic consideration

I'm not going to deposit this in the article since I have no references for it, but I'm wondering if someone might be interested enough in the topic to seek out a reference or figure out a way it could be mentioned, if it's worthy:

Personal preferences for placement of quotation marks can also be affected by the aesthetics of monospace (fixed-width font) typography, such as is used on older computer terminals, typewriters, and edit boxes in HTML forms (such as the one you probably use every time you edit on Wikipedia). For example, the "extra" space that naturally surrounds a period or comma in a monospace font, when added to the space that surrounds quotation marks, can sometimes make a following quotation mark seem too distant—whereas when a period or comma follows a quotation mark, the effect, for some, is less noticable, despite the same amount of space existing between the quote and the period or comma. Of course, this can vary with the font's characteristics. Similar concerns affect the use of single or double spaces to separate sentences, and spacing around dashes.

Thanks. —mjb (talk) 17:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

that the pre-supposes things

Something's missing from this sentence: "For example, to indicate that it is not official terminology or that the pre-supposes things that the author does not necessarily agree with."

It is in the third bullet point in the "Signaling unusual usage" section. I understand what the point is, but can not safely guess the missing word. --Cyhawk (talk) 23:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The sentence was thus already when it was originally introduced. I assume that "the" should simply have been "it". For clarity, I've replaced the whole sentence by this:
"For example, to indicate that a quoted word is not official terminology, or that a quoted phrase pre-supposes things that the author does not necessarily agree with."
 --Lambiam 06:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Single Quotes in BBC-News Headlines

Recent (January 10, 2008) BBC-News articles have a plethora of single quotes that appear to fall somewhere between irony and unusual usage. A sampling follows:

McCain 'wins' crucial US primary. 'Trash tsar' to clear Naples dirt. Sarkozy 'serious' about ex-model. 'Drug lord' Brazil homes for sale. Spain captures 'airport bombers'. Malaysia visa policy 'tightened'. Intel 'undermined' laptop project. Chad 'launches Darfur air raids'. Recession in the US 'has arrived'. Britons 'richer than Americans'. Home price fall 'risks Rock sale'. Grass biofuels 'cut CO2 by 94%'. Japan opens 'tallest lift tower'. Circumcision 'does not curb sex'.

I can certainly appreciate your quote of the Chicago Manual of Style which points out, "Like any such device, scare quotes lose their force and irritate readers if overused."

I am still at a loss as to how to interpret this surfeit of confusing and annoying punctuation. Would that it would wane. I have asked BBC-News directly, but have received no reply.

WILLOBIE (talk) 14:56, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

It couldn't possibly be the words of someone quoted in the story? —Tamfang (talk) 04:59, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
The BBC sure does love to use their scare quotes don't they, haha Travis Cleveland (talk) 20:36, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Cheese has three e’s

Eh? Es or es surely? Michael Wincott (talk) 21:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

As the e is lowercase, the apostrophe is considered correct, but yes, es or "e"s would be better, preferable the former. Reywas92Talk 22:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Mac how-to

To repeat a suggestion I've made at Talk:Quotation mark glyphs, the following would be rather useful info here. Also, the Glyphs secttion here should really have a summary of the main article, and not just a link to it. Please. My own expertise is extremely limited, but a brief summary is needed. Anyway;

On the Apple Macintosh, many special characters are available by typing while holding down the option key, or option and shift keys together, and these are shown in the Keyboard Viewer. In Macintosh English-language keyboard layouts, the curved opening single quotation mark is typed option-], and a curved closing single quotation mark (apostrophe) is typed with the shortcut option-shift-].
Similarly, the curved curved “double” quotation marks are typed option-[ and option-shift-[.)

On mac OS X the Character Palette gives access to all the unicode characters, including primes, and can show the unicode tables giving the number. I've shown a version of the paragraphs above at Apostrophe#Entering typographic apostrophes which also shows how to enter unicode characters in MS Windows. Presumably this info should appear here, not sure how to organise it - a new subsection? ... dave souza, talk 11:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

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