Different inverted commas 1

[happyabc]

What is the the difference between enclosing a bit of text between single inverted commas and double?

 

[sleipnir214]

I assume you are referring to methods for directly quoting text in English. What you are calling the single inverted comma can be used singly (and called the apostrophe) and is used for contractions ("He didn't know.") and possession ("That is Bill's ball.")

In standard English punctuation, the double quotation mark (what you, I think, are calling "double inverted commas"), is the standard punctuation mark for direct quotes:

Adele said, [blue]"[/blue]What do you mean?[blue]"[/blue]

The single quotation mark is used to disambiguate quotes within quotes:

Adele continued her story, saying, [blue]"[/blue]Then he asked her, [red]'[/red]Will you you to the prom with me?[red]'[/red] [blue]"[/blue]

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[Dimandja]

I use single quotes to give a special meaning to a word or words.

For example, is that a 'get lost' look?

Some writers would use italics to achieve the same effect.

Dimandja

 

[Stella740pl]

I would say that regular double quotation marks are equally applicable in this example.

 

[Dimandja]

That look says "get lost".
That's a 'get lost' look.

I think there is a difference: in the first example, I am quoting the look.

Dimandja

 

[CajunCenturion]

I believe your last post Dimandja illustrates another very common mis-placement of quotes. Shouldn't the period actually be inside the quotes when the quote is ending the sentence?

That look says "get lost."


Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[EBGreen]

I believe this varies depending on country. In the US, periods go inside quotes regardless of the logic involved. In the UK, Canada, and other former British colonies, the punctuation placement depends on the logic of the sentence. Some examples:

My favorite poem is "The Decent Docent." - US
My favorite poem is "The Decent Docent". - UK

My fatheer said, "Be home by dessert." - Both

 

[Stella740pl]

Well, quotation marks are used not only for quotations as such. If italics or other means of text formatting are not at your disposal, such as in plain text e-mail, you would generally use quotation marks to highlight a name of a movie, for example - that's what people did when they used a typewriter, right? The are other cases where quotation marks are applicable. So,

That look says "get lost".
That's a "get lost" look.
That look says 'get lost'.
That's a 'get lost' look.

doesn't make a big difference.

As for period inside the quotations, I would say, it's not uncoditionally true. If quotation contains a finished sentence that generally has to have a period of it's own, then of course, it's moving inside. But if an expression inside a quotation is not a sentence on it's own, but just a part of a bigger sentence that uses it, then the period belongs to the big sentence as whole. In the example above, it all depends on how you put it. Here is another one.

If it's

He said: "I feel tired, angry and lost."

then it should be inside.

If it's

He was, by his own words, "tired, angry and lost".

then the period belongs to the whole sentence.

 

[Dimandja]

Agreed, the period belongs to the whole sentence, not the quote.

But, when quoting, quotation marks must be used whether or not italics are at your disposal: italics and quotation marks are not interchangeable. On the other hand, my use of single quotes to highlight words is not to be confused with a quote. That's why there is a significant difference in my examples.

Fred says "come here". -> direct quote.
That's a 'come here' look. -> look is described, not a quote.

Dimandja

 

[Stella740pl]

Here is a link to a grammar site,

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

with explanation of single and double quotation marks usage. Probably, as always, not everyone will agree, but that's life. There is an interesting explanation there of historical reasons for using periods inside or outside of quotation marks. Here it is:

In the United States, periods and commas go inside quotation marks regardless of logic. Click HERE for an explanation (sort of).
...
*There are peculiar typographical reasons why the period and comma go inside the quotation mark in the United States. The following explanation comes from the "Frequently Asked Questions" file of alt.english.usage: "In the days when printing used raised bits of metal, "." and "," were the most delicate, and were in danger of damage (the face of the piece of type might break off from the body, or be bent or dented from above) if they had a '"' on one side and a blank space on the other. Hence the convention arose of always using '."' and ',"' rather than '".' and '",', regardless of logic." This seems to be an argument to return to something more logical, but there is little impetus to do so within the United States.

I want to add, that both in my native language and in British English I studied in high school and college placement of periods and commas inside/outside of quotation marks always depended on the logic. So even though I currently live in USA and speak American English, I wouldn't be able make myself place them always inside unconditionally, it's just doesn't feel right. Before this thread I didn't even know that it differs by the country. Good to know.

Stella

 

[Dimandja]

Good link, indeed. Here is what it says about the use of single quotes:

One further use, according to the Chicago Manual of Style: in philosophical discourse, key concepts may be set apart with single-quote marks. [...]

Sartre's treatment of 'being', as opposed to his treatment of 'non-being', has been thoroughly described in Kaufmann's book.

 

[happyabc]

Another good page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash_(punctuation)

 

[Stella740pl]

Just walked past an example of incorrect use of quotation marks, an ad for internal training. They started to offer it not only in the regular work hours, but also at night.

Spring forward with "evening" lab hours!

Here, bold font or underlining of the word would suffice. With the quotations, it sounds like the time when they offer the training is not really evening hours, but so-called "evening" hours.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

I hate that. There is a guy here at work who emails compliments to other workers that contain phrases like

"Super job" Patricia

It makes him look like a "really smart guy".


Whenever I see that sort of thing, I'm reminded of an episode of Friends where Joey doesn't know how to use 'air quotes' - you know, where you use two fingers of each hand to make 'quotes' around something you're saying.

 

[LesleyW]

!!! Didn't see that episode (or don't remember it) but how can Joey not know what it means, Ross does it all the time!!

And I think your dork who writes things like

"Super job" Patricia

is really diminishing the "compliment" because it comes across as sarcasm.

 

[AnanthaP]

Periods and commas inside quotation marks.

Not when you want to be exact.

To delete a line use "dd".

To delete a line use "dd.".

In `vi` the second would delete 2 lines.

This is a very common example.

End

 

[ESquared]

I've been slavishly applying the period-inside-quotes rule and now I see that I need to rethink that position! Thanks.

 

[CajunCenturion]

First of all, I would never use 'vi' as a punctuation guide for anything, sometimes maybe not even for 'vi.'

The period inside quotes rule is still the correct rule for punctuation in the USA.

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[sleipnir214]

The Jargon File", maintained by by Eric S. Raymond, has an entry on this in the section titled "Hacker Writing Style"

Although I live in the US, I am guilty of preferring "logical" quoting style to the US standard. I have no real explanation other than to say I do it for purposes of disambiguation.


But then, I've abandoned the US-standard "MM-DD-YYYY" date-format, too, in favor of "YYYY-MM-DD", except in those situations where a standardized form requires otherwise. The Europeans are much more logical using "DD-MM-YYYY", but "YYYY-MM-DD" has the advantage that date-order and alphabetical order are one and the same.



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[rosieb]

Personally, I prefer "YYYY-MM-DD" purely because of its "sortability".

I feel that "DD-MM-YYYY" is more obvious, but that's probably because I'm European, so it's what I'm used to.

Rosie
"Never express yourself more clearly than you think" (Niels Bohr)