It is '. Nothing else.

[CertainlyToomsRemains]

Not

`

or

".

Apostrophes are just '.

Thanks.

[relaxes jaw]

how do yo umake it do the elongated : ?

`¬ can't do it.

What does ` mean anyway? I'd never noticed it before now.

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦

Bwahahahahahaha!

The ` is the bane of my life - I work in IT and have to import stuff that has come from Word documents into an application which hates them and turns them all into '?'s instead. Then I have to tell the user that it is their responsibility to tidy them up and not mine, and they get sniffy about it.

mustdash It's an accent for Frechifying things. Likè zèes for èxamplè.

You type it and the next letter you type gets it over it.

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦

hahah!!

it's ctrl+alt+`

`e

e`

it doesn't.
how do yo umake it do that?

My macbook only has '

Thank GOODNESS!

Really?

Cool, my computer is magic.

I just type it, although nothing appears on the screen, and then immediately type a vowel and piff paff poof, it's Frencyfied.

Double quotation marks are for Americans and the Radio Times. They used to be used in the UK but not any more.

If you are quoting someone else quoting, then and only then you can use them, thus:
Psammead said, 'Chaos, me too. Sort of that dismissive "yes dear" stock reply I generally give when DH starts whittering on about turning off lights'.

Minnie I did not know that!

Minnie - that's wrong.
The " is a speechmark, not a quotation mark, therefore:

Psammead said, "Chaos, me too. Sort of that dismissive 'yes dear' stock reply I generally give when DH starts whittering on about turning off lights."

is the correct way round in British English.
Us English also has the punctuation marks in the wrong places.

(ps I don't know how Americans use them)

I do feel special now.

I have no idea what you would use ¦ for though.....

maybe a weird sleepy-person smiley.

Ah nickelbabe, see that's how I use them atm.

I will continue to do so!

I don't know what you use ¦ for either.

``¬¬¦¦¦

What is this key called? Or can we come up with a name for it? And maybe a finger gesture like the two-index-finger-wiggling for quotation marks.

Bored? Me? No I'm VERY busy.........

No, no, NO!!!

Pick up any book. Quotation marks are single in the UK. Really.

From the Oxford Guide to Style:

'British practice is normally to enclose quoted matter between single quotation marks, and to use double quotation marks for a quotation within a quotation... The order is often reversed in newspapers, and uniformly in US practice.'

Honestly, I've never got so het up about something on MN before...

You're all going to find books with double quotation marks in. I don't care. I AM RIGHT!!!!

I don't know what to do now!

I get paid to take out double quotation marks. They'd sack me if I didn't...

quotations yes, singular, but not speechmarks

difference:
Psammead said, "hello." = speechmarks

the quote inside that text from earlier was 'yes dear'
but if you'd just said, "yes dear," than it would be double ones.

so:
Psammead said, "Chaos, me too. Sort of that dismissive 'yes dear' stock reply I generally give when DH starts whittering on about turning off lights."

but:
'British practice is normally to enclose quoted matter between single quotation marks, and to use double quotation marks for a quotation within a quotation... The order is often reversed in newspapers, and uniformly in US practice.'

because you're quoting what the passage said, you're not saying it.
It's quite hard to explain, isn't it!

eg:
Last year, I saw a website that was selling 'really good stuff'.
Monica said, "there's some really good stuff on this website."

see?

PS: Minnie - it's probably also down to "house style" - your company wants single quotation marks, even when they're speaking, others would want it done the correct way

I'm going to talk to my English professor. Whatever she says I'm going to go along with.

No, for speech marks same rule applies.

Every publisher I've ever worked for uses both single speech marks and quotation marks. Oxford Guide to Style is the bible for such things and they say single for both. In fact they call speech marks quotation marks and don't differentiate.