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Quotation marks or inverted commas (informally referred to as quotes[1] and speech marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, a phrase, or a word. They come as a pair of opening and closing marks in either of two styles: single (‘. . .’) or double (“. . .”). Depending on the typeface, opening and closing quotation marks may be identical in form (called "vertical", "straight", or "typewriter" quotation marks), or they may be distinctly left-handed and right-handed ("typographic" or, colloquially, "curly" quotation marks). The closing single quotation mark is identical or similar in form to the apostrophe, and similar to the prime symbol. These three characters have quite different purposes, however. See also ditto mark.
[edit] Usage[edit] Quotations and speechSingle or double quotation marks denote either speech or a quotation. Neither style – single nor double – is an absolute rule, though double quotation marks are preferred in the United States, and both single and double quotation marks are used in the United Kingdom. A publisher’s, or even an author’s, style may take precedence over national general preferences. The important rule is that the style of opening and closing quotation marks must be matched:
For speech within speech, the other is used as inner quotation marks:
Sometimes, quotations are nested in more levels than inner and outer quotation. Nesting levels up to five can be found in the Bible.[2] In these cases, questions arise about the form (and names) of the quotation marks to be used. The most common way is to simply alternate between the two forms[3], thus:
If such a passage is further quoted in another publication, then all of their forms have to be shifted over by one level. In most cases, quotations that span multiple paragraphs should be set as block quotations, and thus do not require quotation marks. Quotation marks are used for multiple-paragraph quotations in some cases, especially in narratives. The convention in English is to give opening quotation marks to the first and each subsequent paragraph, using closing quotation marks only for the final paragraph of the quotation, as in the following example from Pride and Prejudice:
As noted below, in some older texts, the quotation mark is repeated every line, rather than every paragraph. The Spanish convention uses closing quotation marks at the beginning of all subsequent paragraphs beyond the first. 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. Commas are also often used before and after the interruption, more often for quotations of speech than for quotations of text:
It is considered incorrect[who?] to use quotation marks for paraphrased speech. This is because a paraphrase is not a direct quote, and in the course of any composition, it is important to document when one is using a quotation versus when one is using a paraphrased idea. If HAL says: "All systems are functional," then:
However, another convention when quoting text in the body of a paragraph or sentence—for example, in an essay—is to recognize double quotation marks as marking an exact quotation, and single quotation marks as marking a paraphrased quotation or a quotation where grammar, pronouns, or plurality have been changed in order to fit the sentence containing the quotation (see reported speech). [edit] IronyMain article: Scare quotes Another common use of quotation marks is to indicate or call attention to ironic or apologetic words:
To avoid the potential for confusion between ironic quotes and direct quotations, some style guides specify single quotation marks for this usage, and double quotation marks for verbatim speech. Quotes indicating irony, or other special use, are sometimes called scare, sneer, shock, distance, or horror quotes. They are sometimes gestured in oral speech using air quotes. [edit] Signaling unusual usageQuotation marks are also used to indicate that the writer realizes that a word is not being used in its current commonly accepted sense.
In addition to conveying a neutral attitude and to call attention to a neologism, or slang, or special terminology (also known as jargon), quoting can also indicate words or phrases that are descriptive but unusual, colloquial, folksy, startling, humorous, metaphoric, or contain a pun:
People also use quotation marks in this way to:
The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), 15th edition[4] acknowledges this type of use but cautions against overuse in section 7.58, "Quotation marks are often used to alert readers that a term is used in a nonstandard, ironic, or other special sense [...] They imply ‘This is not my term,’ or ‘This is not how the term is usually applied.’ Like any such device, scare quotes lose their force and irritate readers if overused." [edit] Use–mention distinctionMain articles: Use–mention distinction and Metalanguage Either quotation marks or italic type can emphasize that an instance of a word refers to the word itself rather than its associated concept.
A three-way distinction is occasionally made between normal use of a word (no quotation marks), referring to the concept behind the word (single quotation marks), and the word itself (double quotation marks):
The logic for this derives from the need to distinguish use forms, coupled with the mandate to retain consistent notation for like use forms.[5] The switching between double and single quotes in nested citation quotes reveals the same literary device for reducing ambiguitiy. Books about language often use italics for the word itself and single quotation marks for a gloss:
In common usage, there may be a distinction between the single and double quotation marks in this context; often, single quotation marks are used to embrace single characters, while double quotation marks enclose whole words or phrases:
The two may, however, in these cases, be to some degree interchangeable. [edit] Titles of artistic worksQuotation marks, rather than italics, are generally used for the titles of shorter works. Whether these are single or double is again a matter of style; however, many styles, especially for poetry, prefer the use of single quotation marks.
As a rule, a whole publication would be italicised, whereas the titles of minor works (such as poems or short stories inside the collection) would be written with quotation marks.
[edit] Nicknames and false titlesQuotation marks can also offset a nickname embedded in an actual name, or a false or ironic title embedded in an actual title; for example, Nat “King” Cole, or Miles “Tails” Prower. [edit] Emphasis (incorrect usage)Quotes are sometimes used incorrectly for emphasis in lieu of underlining or italics, most commonly on signs or placards. This usage can be confused with ironic or altered-usage quotation, sometimes with unintended humor. For example, For sale: “fresh” fish, “fresh” oysters, could be construed to imply that fresh is not used with its everyday meaning, or indeed to indicate that the fish or oysters are anything but fresh. And again, Teller lines open until noon for your “convenience” might mean that the convenience was for the bank employees, not the customers.[6][7][8][9] [edit] Typographical considerations[edit] PunctuationAmerican English places commas and periods inside the quotation almost all of the time, making exceptions only for parenthetical citation and cases in which the addition of a period or comma would create confusion, such as when quoting a keyboard entry or a web address. The British style places them inside or outside the quotation marks according to whether or not the punctuation is part of the quoted material.[10][11] The American rule is derived from typesetting. Although the terms “American style” and “British style” are used, it is not as clear cut as that because at least one[which?] major British newspaper prefers typesetters' quotation (punctuation inside) and BBC News uses both styles, while scientific and technical publications, even in the U.S., sometimes use what is called logical quotation (punctuation outside unless part of the source material). The same style used in British is also typical of other languages, such as Italian and French. Logical quotation differs from British style in its treatment of colons and semicolons. British and American styles both place them outside the quote marks all the time, while logical-technical style allows them to be placed inside. (An example would be a reference to the C programming language statement, ' As with many such differences,[vague] the American rule follows an older British standard. Before the advent of mechanical type, the order of quotation marks with periods and commas was not given much consideration. The printing press required that the easily damaged smallest pieces of type for the comma and period be protected behind the more robust quotation marks.[12] The typesetter’s rule was standard in early 19th century Britain, and the U.S. style still adheres to this older tradition both in everyday use and in non-technical formal writing. The grammatical rule was advocated by the extremely influential book The King’s English (1906), by Fowler and Fowler.[13]
Today, most areas of publication conform to one of the two standards above. American English does permit periods and commas outside the quotation marks when the presence of the punctuation mark inside the quotation marks will lead to ambiguity, such as when describing keyboard input:
In both styles, question marks and exclamation marks are placed inside or outside quoted material depending on whether they apply to the whole sentence or just the quoted portion, but colons and semicolons are always placed outside.[15]
In the first two sentences above, only one punctuation mark is used at the end of each. Regardless of its placement, only one end mark (?, !, or .) can end a sentence in American English. Only the period, however, cannot end a quoted sentence when it does not also end the enclosing sentence, except for literal text:
References: Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition; Hart’s Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford; Merriam-Webster's Guide to Punctuation and Style, second edition. [edit] SpacingIn English, when a quotation follows other writing on a line of text, a space precedes the opening quotation mark unless the preceding symbol, such as a dash, requires that there be no space. When a quotation is followed by other writing on a line of text, a space follows the closing quotation mark unless it is immediately followed by other punctuation within the sentence, such as a colon or closing punctuation. (These exceptions are ignored by some Asian computer systems that systematically display quotation marks with the included spacing, as this spacing is part of the fixed-width characters.) There is generally no space between an opening quotation mark and the following word, or a closing quotation mark and the preceding word. When a double quotation mark or a single quotation mark immediately follows the other, proper spacing for legibility requires that a non-breaking space be inserted.
[edit]Straight quotation marks (or italicized straight quotation marks) are often used to approximate the prime and double prime, e.g., when signifying feet and inches, arcminutes and arcseconds or minutes and seconds, where the quotation mark symbolises the latter part of the pair. For instance, 5 feet and 6 inches is often written 5' 6", and 40 degrees, 20 arcminutes, and 50 arcseconds is written 40° 20' 50". When available, however, the prime should be used instead (e.g., 5′ 6″, and 40° 20′ 50″). Prime and double prime are not present in most character sets, including ASCII and Latin-1, but are present in Unicode, as characters U+2032 (dec. 8242) and U+2033 (dec. 8243), and as HTML entities ′ and ″. Double quotation marks are also often used to represent the ditto mark. Straight single and double quotation marks are used in most programming languages to delimit strings or literal characters. In some languages (e.g. Pascal) only one type is allowed, in some (e.g. C and its derivatives) both are used with different meanings and in others (e.g. Python) both are used interchangeably. In some languages, if it is desired to include the same quotation marks used to delimit a string inside the string, the quotation marks are doubled. For example to represent the string eat 'hot' dogs in Pascal one uses 'eat ''hot'' dogs'. Other languages use an escape character, often the backslash, as in 'eat \'hot\' dogs'. [edit] Typing quotation marks on a computer keyboardStandard English computer keyboard layouts inherited the single and double "straight" quotation marks from the typewriter (the single quotation mark also doubling as an apostrophe), and they do not include individual keys for left-handed and right-handed typographic quotation marks. However, most computer text-editing programs provide a "smart quotes" feature (see below) to automatically convert "straight" quote marks into typographic punctuation. Generally, this "smart quote" feature is enabled by default. Some websites do not allow typographic quotation marks or apostrophes in posts (one such example being YouTube). One can skirt these limitations, however, by using the HTML character codes or entities.[16]
[edit] Smart quotesTo make typographic quotation marks easier to enter, publishing software often automatically converts typewriter quotation marks (and apostrophes) to typographic form during text entry (with or without the user being aware of it). This is known as the "smart quotes" feature. Quotation marks that are not automatically altered by computer programs are known as "dumb quotes". Some implementations incorrectly produce an opening single quotation mark in places where an apostrophe is required, for example, in abbreviated years like ’08 for 2008. [edit] Glyphs
Main article: Quotation mark glyphs [edit] History
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 Bible. During the Renaissance, quotations were distinguished by setting in a typeface contrasting with the main body text (often Italic type with roman, or the other way round). Long quotations were also set this way, at full size and full measure.[17] Quotation marks were first cut in metal type during the middle of the sixteenth century, and were used copiously by some printers by the seventeenth. In some Baroque and Romantic-period books, they would be repeated at the beginning of every line of a long quotation. When this practice was abandoned, the empty margin remained, leaving the modern form of indented block quotation.[17] In Early Modern English, quotation marks were used only to denote pithy comments. They first began to quote direct speech in 1714. By 1749 single quotation marks, or inverted commas, were commonly used to denote direct speech.[18] [edit] See also[edit] Notes
[edit] References
[edit] External links
This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.
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