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Post by mick on Apr 15, 2024 7:22:07 GMT
Following from another thread, I did some Googling. I found this:
'Quotation marks, also called 'inverted commas', are of two types: single and double. British practice is normally to enclose quoted matter between single quotation marks, and to use double quotation marks for a quotation within a quotation:
'Have you any idea', he said, 'what "dillygrout" is?'
This is the preferred OUP practice for academic books. The order is often reversed in newspapers, and uniformly in US practice:
"Have you any idea," he said, "what 'dillygrout' is?"
If another quotation is nested within the second quotation, revert to the original mark, either single-double-single or double-single-double. '
The above is from the Oxford Guide to Style. Many other internet sites have the same advice.
Single quotes for speech? That's not what I was taught, and it's not what any of my grandchildren are being taught (I checked).
If I ever had a rule, and I'm not sure that I was ever taught the use of single quotes. It was to use doubles for speech and singles for other quotes, say from a book for example.
What do you experts say, please.
Mick
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Post by kate on Apr 15, 2024 8:05:05 GMT
Not an expert, but I have always used double quotes for either speech or quoting a reference from another place. I also don't remember single quotes being an option for anything. Computer usage in the early days made me nervous of using quotation marks. As for academic papers, it was enough (as I remember) to simply reference an extract by a reference label at the end of the quote or extract. I can't honestly remember using quotes, but would have to look at my old papers to see if I did!
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Post by kate on Apr 15, 2024 8:42:03 GMT
I did have a quick look at how I interpreted the rules. Double quotes for a straight quote from an article. Single quotes for a word used in the article or question to stress the object of the analysis.  paper 1 by Kate Ferris, on Flickr |
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Post by geoffr on Apr 15, 2024 8:42:30 GMT
Not an expert, but I have always used double quotes for either speech or quoting a reference from another place. I also don't remember single quotes being an option for anything. Computer usage in the early days made me nervous of using quotation marks. As for academic papers, it was enough (as I remember) to simply reference an extract by a reference label at the end of the quote or extract. I can't honestly remember using quotes, but would have to look at my old papers to see if I did! I remember much the same, I don't think "singel"quotation marks were ever mentioned. |
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Post by mick on Apr 15, 2024 8:54:49 GMT
I did have a quick look at how I interpreted the rules. Double quotes for a straight quote from an article. Single quotes for a word used in the article or question to stress the object of the analysis. paper 1 by Kate Ferris, on Flickr Strewth Kate - that's in a language that I don't speak!
Mick
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Post by peterob on Apr 15, 2024 8:56:03 GMT
I generally use double quotes and I didn't see anything wrong with the earlier post in which the grammar checker reported an error. I don't recall using a single quote other than to indicate missing letters. I'll have to go upstairs and look but I think my Apple keyboard makes it easy to mistype ' for " in which case I may sometimes single quote in error, being too lazy to correct. When coding ' and " have specific usages as delimiters; the ' suppresses expansion of escape sequences in character sequences (strings) but if there are no special characters then the two are interchangeable.
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Post by kate on Apr 15, 2024 8:58:04 GMT
I did have a quick look at how I interpreted the rules. Double quotes for a straight quote from an article. Single quotes for a word used in the article or question to stress the object of the analysis. paper 1 by Kate Ferris, on Flickr Strewth Kate - that's in a language that I don't speak!
Mick
Me neither these days! Ha! Goodness knows how I managed. I was determined to do something difficult to dig me out of a hole after hubby died. It worked but was rather hard work. |
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Post by spinno on Apr 15, 2024 10:49:12 GMT
I'm a double man. Taught double quotation marks, even with doubles inside as well (the more the merrier it seemed)
Brackets, square, round, parentheses...that's another issue
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Post by spinno on Apr 15, 2024 11:01:16 GMT
Isn't a single quotation marks an apostrophe?
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Post by geoffr on Apr 15, 2024 11:02:55 GMT
Isn't a single quotation marks an apostrophe? That’s how I have always understood it. |
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Post by JohnY on Apr 15, 2024 11:32:58 GMT
Is the information in mick's post modern usage? I was taught to use double quotes for all quotations when I was at school but that was over sixty years ago. |
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Post by peterob on Apr 15, 2024 13:34:47 GMT
Isn't a single quotation marks an apostrophe? Depends on context. If I was to read out loud then I would speak 'quote' as quote, quote, quote and "quote" as double quote, quote, double quote. |
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Post by mick on Apr 15, 2024 13:49:34 GMT
Isn't a single quotation marks an apostrophe? That's an apostrophe.
'That's an apostrophe in single quotes'.
"That's an apostrophe in double quotes."
I also read that there's some difference about where the full stop goes depending on single or double quotes. Couldn't be bothered to remember what it said, so the above might be wrong.
Mick
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Post by mick on Apr 15, 2024 14:01:17 GMT
For Kate.
Kate I'm quite upset with you. As a result of you mentioning Hume (did he play for United?) I Googled.
Now I'm plunged into a morass, a filthy bog, in which words don't seem to have the same meaning as the words I've known and used all my life. I've found my way into a parallel universe in which the language is familiar but foreign, and I don't seem able to make head nor tail of it. It's like one of those random word generators that spew deliberately unintelligible sentences. It's your fault!
Give me a page of calculus any day.
Mick
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Post by spinno on Apr 15, 2024 14:02:51 GMT
Isn't a single quotation marks an apostrophe? That's an apostrophe.
'That's an apostrophe in single quotes'.
"That's an apostrophe in double quotes."
I also read that there's some difference about where the full stop goes depending on single or double quotes. Couldn't be bothered to remember what it said, so the above might be wrong.
Mick
Use ellipses...readers can make their own minds up... |
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