Punctuation experts, please help.

[drosophila]

When do you use single quotation marks and when do you use double? I sit just a fashion thing? I think I heard that the US tend to use double quotation marks and the British use single.

[crazydazy]

Well the double ones are speech marks aren't they? So surely they should only be used when referring to someone speaking.

I could be wrong though.

[MrsBadger]

Read this and realised I wasn't totally sure either so had a quick Google - \link{http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/doc/punctuation/node30.html\this} is pretty good.

[Ellbell]

It depends on who you're writing for, basically drosophila, so you're right that in 'everyday' writing (e.g. writing a letter, sending an email, whatever...) it's really up to you to decide which you prefer. (And, I suppose that if I were being really pedantic - I'm so good at it - I'd say just be consistent, and don't mix single and double for no good reason.)

If you are writing for a publisher, though, you are likely to be told which to use. In the UK the 'default' is normally single inverted commas, and so you'd only use double inverted commas for a quotation within a quotation... as in:

Joe Bloggs writes that 'those women who say "snurk" are clearly Mumsnetters'.

In the US though, the 'default' is double inverted commas, with single being used for quotes within quotes.

I have seen double inverted commas used to denote speech, with single inverted commas being used for, say, quotations from a written text, but it seems wrong to me. I stand by my rule that you choose one and stick to it.

HTH

[Ellbell]

Nice clear website Mrs B., though if I were being really pedantic (moi?), I'd criticise what they do with the punctuation at the end of the sentences they give as examples.

IME, the rule is (in the UK...in the US they do it differently) that if the sentence starts outside the inverted commas, then the final punctuation mark should also be outside the inverted commas. Only if the sentence starts inside the inverted commas should the punctuation come inside them.

Kennedy said 'Ich bin ein Berliner'.

but

Here is an interesting quotation from the panel opposite me as I type this. 'To bold a word, surround it with asterisks.'


Anyone think I need to get a life?

[edam]

Ellbell, didn't you need a colon instead of a stop after 'this'? So your second example would be one sentence, not two?

Drosophila, agree with Ellbell's first post, mainly.

[Ellbell]

Yeah, edam... I was trying to invent a quotation which was a whole sentence, iyswim, so that I could demonstrate putting the full stop inside the inverted commas rather than outside. If I'd used a colon then I'd have had to have put the full stop outside. But it wasn't a great example!

[spacedonkey]

I agree with you ellbell!

[drosophila]

Thanks, it was for DP who works for an international company. It appears that everyone in the company seems to be adopting the US standard of English and this doesn't feel that comfortable to him. I suppose there are quite a few stylistic differences between the US and Britain not just different spelling.

[clerkKent]

Ellbell, I thought that too about the article. However if you read to the end, it discusses where the stop should go and says that the conventional way is to put it inside the quotes, but the author prefers is outside.


When typing I use single quotes, but in handwriting I use double (not that I ever write by hand these days).