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Quotation mark

Quotation marks, also called quotes or inverted commas, are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which may or may not be the same character, see below. They have a variety of forms in different languages and in different media.

Table of contents
1 Usage
2 Glyphs
3 Table
4 Names for quotation marks

Usage

Quotations & speech

For quotations consisting of more than one paragraph, an opening quotation mark should appear at the beginning of each paragraph of the quoted text and a closing quotation mark at the end of the last paragraph only. When the 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. British and United States style differs as to whether single or double quotation marks are used, but neither is an absolute rule, and a publisher's or even an author's style may take precedence. (The only absolute rule is consistency!) The American convention is for sentence punctuation to be included inside the quotation marks, even if the punctuation is not part of the quoted sentence:
'Good morning, Dave,' said HAL.\n:"Good morning, Dave," said HAL.
The British style is to have the punctuation outside the quotation marks for small quoted phrases:
Someone shouted 'Shut up!'.\n:Also called "plain quotes", they are teardrops.
Despite what is sometimes written on discussions of punctuation, British positioning is the same as American in complete quoted speech:
'Good morning, Dave,' said HAL.
In some subject areas (such as software documentation and chemistry), it is conventional to include only what is part of the quoted phrase within the quotes, for clarity:
Enter the URL as "www.wikipedia.org", the name as "Wikipedia", and click "OK".
For speech within speech:
'HAL said, "Good morning, Dave",' said Frank.\n:"HAL said, 'Good morning, Dave'," said Frank.
It is incorrect to use quotation marks for paraphrased speech:\n:WRONG: HAL said that "Everything was going extremely well."\n:RIGHT: HAL said that everything was going extremely well.

Emphasis and ironic quotes

Another important usage of quotation marks is to indicate or call attention to ironic or apologetic words. Ironic quotes are sometimes called scare quotes or sneer quotes.
He claimed he was too "busy" to visit me.
Ironic quotes should be used with care, as they can obscure the writer's intended meaning and are easily confused with quotations. Quotes are also used to indicate that the writer realizes that the word is not being used in its (currently) accepted sense ("in the fifteenth century, we 'knew' that blah blah..."), or to emphasize that an instance of a word refers to the word itself, rather than its associated concept. Quotes are also sometimes used for emphasis in lieu of underlining or italics. This is generally discouraged not only because it is historically an improper usage, but also because it is easily confused with ironic or altered-usage quotation as described above. This is most commonly found on signs or placards. Example:
For sale: "fresh" fish, $5.99
Notice how easily that statement could be construed to imply that the word fresh is not being used with its everyday meaning. See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style.

Titles of artistic works

Quotation 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:
  • short fiction, poetry, etc.: Arthur C. Clarke's "The Sentinel"\n*book chapters: The first chapter of 3001: The Final Odyssey is "Comet Cowboy"\n*articles in books, magazines, journals, etc.: "Extra-Terrestrial Relays", Wireless World, October 1945 \n*album tracks, singles, etc.: David Bowie's "Space Oddity"

Non-language related usage

Straight quotes (or italic straight quotes) are often used to approximate the prime and double prime (e.g. when when signifying inches and feet, or arcminutes and arcseconds). For instance, 5 feet and 6 inches is often written 5' 6", and 40 degrees, 20 minutes, and 50 seconds is written 40° 20' 50". When available, however, the prime should be used instead. Straight quotes are often used in programming languages to delimit strings. Single and double quotes usually have different meanings in this context.

Glyphs

A list of glyphs used as quotation marks and their Unicode (and HTML) values and names follows. \nThe Unicode standard defines two general character categories, "Ps" (punctuation quote start) and "Pe" (punctuation quote end), for all quotation mark characters. (Warning: Some of these glyphs may not display properly in older browsers, which may substitute other sorts or a square.)

Straight quotes

These are often used in rapid writing and are the standard quotation marks used on typewriters and computers. However, modern word processors have started to convert text to use curved quotes (see below). Some computer systems designed in the past had proper opening and closing quotes, with a few machines even making a distinction between regular apostrophes (e.g. couldn't) and apostrophes that show possession (e.g. Dave's car). However, the standard ASCII character set, which has been used on a wide variety of computers since the 1960s, only made three quotation marks available: ", ', and the dubious backquote `. {| border\n! Samples || Unicode (decimal) || HTML || Description\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0"|'O'\n|U+0027 (39)\n|' in XML, but usually '\n|Apostrophe (single quote)\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0"|"O"\n|U+0022 (34)\n|", but usually "\n|Straight quotation mark (double quote)\n|} Many systems, like the personal computers of the 1980s and early 90s, actually drew straight quotes like curved closing quotes on-screen and in printouts, so text would appear like this (approximately): 
    ”Good morning, Dave,” said HAL.\n     ’Good morning, Dave,’ said HAL.
The backquote (`) could then be used when doing single quote marks, and give a proper appearance. Unfortunately, nothing similar was available for the double-quote, so many people resorted to using sets of two single quotes for punctuation (this is how TeX knows you want to produce book quotes, for instance): 
    ‘Good morning, Dave,’ said HAL.\n     ‘‘Good morning, Dave,’’ said HAL.
However, the appearance of these characters has varied greatly from system to system. Currently, due to the transition to new character sets such as Unicode (which specifies that single and double quotes should be vertical rather than angled) such tricks can lead to a fairly different appearance: 
    ``Good morning, Dave,'' said HAL.

Curved quotes in English

English curved quotes, also called "book quotes" or "curly quotes", look like small 6 (six) and 9 (nine) with the circles filled. They are preferred in formal writing and with correct typography, but in e-mail and on Usenet they should not be used because they are not present in the ASCII character set (which is the lowest common denominator for computers across the world). Curved quotes are also sometimes referred to as "smart quotes", in reference to the name of a function found in word processors like Microsoft Word that automatically converts straight quotes typed by the user into curved quotes; this is a misnomer, as it is not the quotes themselves that are "smart" but the function which is able to correctly determine (most of the time) whether to use a right-curving or a left-curving glyph in any particular case. \nThis function is necessary because the older ASCII character set had a single straight\ndouble quotation mark (character 34), not distinct opening and closing quotation marks, and\nthus keyboards lacked separate quotation marks.\nA quote followed by a letter generally becomes an opening quote, whereas a quote with a letter or period preceeding it and a space after it becomes a closing quote. As text is converted to ASCII, such as when text is put into a clipboard for cut and paste operations, or is saved to disk, these extended characters are generally converted back to the ASCII code (34). Some programs that are ill behaved do not implement this behavior resulting in strings that are not strictly in the 7 bit ASCII character set. {| border\n! Samples || Unicode (decimal) || HTML || Description\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0"|‘O’\n|U+2018 (8216), U+2019 (8217)\n|‘ ’\n|Single quotes (left and right)\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0"|“O”\n|U+201c (8220), U+201d (8221)\n|“ ”\n|Double quotes (left and right)\n|} Variants of ‘ and “ are:
‛ – x'201B' (HTML: ‛) – single high-reversed-9, or single reversed comma, quotation mark\n:‟ – x'201F' (HTML: ‟) – double high-reversed-9, or double reversed comma, quotation mark
Supporting curved quotes has been a problem in information technology, primarily because the widely-used ASCII character set did not include a representation for them (as discussed above). Word processors have traditionally offered curved quotes to users, because in printed documents curved quotes are preferred to straight ones. Before Unicode was widely accepted and supported, this meant representing the curved quotes in whatever 8-bit encoding the software and underlying operating system were using — but the character sets for Windows and Macintosh used two different pairs of values for curved quotes, and ISO 8859-1 (typically the default character set for the Unices and Linux) had no curved quotes, making cross-platform compatability a nightmare.\n Compounding the problem is the "smart quotes" feature mentioned above, which some word processors (including Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org) use by default. With this feature turned on, users may not have realised that the ASCII-compatible straight quotes they were typing on their keyboards ended up as something entirely different. Unicode support has since become the norm for operating systems. Thus, in at least some cases, transferring content containing curved quotes (or any other non-ASCII characters) from a word processor to another application or platform has sometimes been less troublesome, provided all steps in the process (including the clipboard if applicable) are Unicode-aware. But there are many applications which still use the older character sets, or output data using them, and thus problems still occur. There are other considerations for including curved quotes in\nthe widely-used data formats HTML, XML, and SGML, in cases where a character encoding other than Unicode is used (such as the English Wikipedia, which uses ISO 8859-1).\nAlthough HTML includes definitions for single and double curved quotes (as shown above),\nXML does not. In addition, while the XML specification version 1.1 allows\nspecifying both hexadecimal and\ndecimal representations of character entities, SGML and older versions of\nthe XML specification (and many implementations) only support decimal\nrepresentations. Thus, some argue that any use of\ncurly quotes in XML, SGML, and HTML (a use of SGML)\nshould use the decimal numeric character references.\nThat is, to represent the double curly quotes use\n“ and ” while to represent single curly quotes use\n‘ and ’.\nThese representations are universally supported by all SGML, HTML, and XML\nimplementations, making it easier to later combine material\nin a way certain to be correctly processed.

Curved quotes in German

Confusingly, what is the "left quote" in English is used as the right quote in German, and a different "low 9 quote" is used for the left instead: {| border\n! Samples || Unicode (decimal) || HTML || Description\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0;font-family:serif"|‚O‘\n|U+201a (8218), U+2018 (8216)\n|‚ ‘\n|German single quotes (left and right)\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0;font-family:serif"|„O“\n|U+201E (8222), U+201C (8220)\n|„ “\n|German double quotes (left and right)\n|}

Curved quotes in Polish

In Polish language double angle quotes are used inside of standard Polish double quotes. (See: “Angle quotes in French...” section below.) {| border\n! Samples || Unicode (decimal) || HTML || Description\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0;font-family:serif"|„O”\n|U+201E (8222), U+201d (8221)\n|„ ”\n|Polish double quotes (left and right)\n|}

Angle quotes in French, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Polish

Some languages, such as French or Italian, use angle quotation marks (chevrons or guillemets) and add space within the quotes, as in:
« Est-ce que vous aimez ma ponctuation, Henri ? »
There is no such space in Polish and Russian. Also unlike English, French does not set off unquoted material within a quotation mark by using a second set of quotes. Compare:
"This is a great day for Montreal," the minister said. "These investments will permit economic growth."\n: « C'est une belle journée pour les Montréalais, soutient le ministre. Ces investissements stimuleront la croissance économique. »
For clarity, some newspapers put the quoted material in italics:
« C'est une belle journée pour les Montréalais, soutient le ministre. Ces investissements stimuleront la croissance économique. »
The use of English quotation marks is increasing in French, and usually follows English rules. English quotes are also used for nested quotations, as American English uses single quotes:
« Son "explication" n'est qu'une mensonge, » s'indigna le député.
Spanish uses angled quotation marks as well, but often without the spaces. Although not common in Dutch in general, double angle quotation marks are used in Dutch government publications. Sometimes, these are used in German publications also, but rather rarely, and then exactly reversed and without spacing. {| border\n! Samples || Unicode (decimal) || HTML || Description\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0"|‹ O ›\n|U+2039 (8249), U+203a (8250)\n|‹ ›\n|French single angle quotes (left and right)\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0"|« O »\n|U+00AB (171), U+00BB (187)\n|« »\n|French double angle quotes (left and right)\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0"|«O»\n|U+00AB (171), U+00BB (187)\n|« »\n|French double angle quotes (left and right) without space (used in Polish and Russian)\n|}

Quotation dash

Another typographical style, particularly common in French, Italian, Russian, and Polish publications, is to omit quotation marks for lines of dialogue, replacing them with an initial dash:
― Je m'ennuie tellement, dit-elle.\n: ― Cela n'est pas de ma faute, retorqua-t-il.
Sometimes a second dash is used to indicate the end of the quoted speech:
― Ай, ай, ай! ― вскрикнул Левин. ― Я ведь, кажется, уже лет девять не говел. Я и не подумал.\n: ― Хорош! ― смеясь, сказал Степан Аркадевич, ― а меня же называешь нигилистом! Однако ведь это нельзя. Тебе надо говеть.
According to the Unicode standard, U+2015 HORIZONTAL BAR should be used as a quotation dash. In general it is the same length as an em-dash, and so this is often used instead. Both are displayed in the table below. {| border\n! Samples || Unicode (decimal) || HTML || Description\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0"|― O\n|U+2015 (8213)\n|―\n|Quotation dash, also known as horizontal bar\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0"|— O\n|U+2014 (8212)\n|—\n|Em-dash, an alternative to the quotation dash\n|}

Square quotes in East Asian languages

The Japanese and Chinese languages use the square quote marks. The double quotes are used for quote-within-quote. Square quotes are well-suited to languages that can be written in both vertical and horizontal orientations. {| border\n! Samples || Unicode (decimal) || Description\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0"|「O」\n|U+300C (12300), U+300D (12301)\n|Asian single square quotes (left and right)
\nChinese: 引號 (Pinyin: yin3 hao4)
\nJapanese: Kanji: 鉤括弧 ; Hiragana: かぎかっこ (kagikakko)\n|-\n!style="font-size:3em;line-height:1.0"|『O』\n|U+300E (12302), U+300F (12303)\n|Asian double square quotes (left and right)
\nChinese: 雙引號 (Pinyin: shuang1 yin3 hao4)
\nJapanese: 二重鉤括弧 (nijyuu kagikakko)\n|}

Table

\n{| border style="font-size:larger"\n|+ Quote signs in several languages\n!rowspan=2| Language ||colspan=2| Standard ||colspan=2| Alternative ||rowspan=2| Space\n|-\n! Double || Single || Double || Single\n|-\n! Afrikaans\n| „…” || ‚…’\n| || || \n|-\n! Albanian\n| «…» || ‹…›\n| “…„ || ‘…‚ || \n|-\n! Belarusian\n| «…» || ‹…›\n| „…“ || ‚…‘ || 1 pt\n|-\n! Bulgarian\n| „…“ || ‚…‘\n| || || \n|-\n! Chinese\n| 「…」 ||『…』\n| “…” || ‘…’ (2) || \n|-\n! Croatian\n| »…« || ›…‹\n| || || \n|-\n! Czech\n| „…“ || ‚…‘\n| »…« || ›…‹ || \n|-\n! Danish\n| »…« || ›…‹\n| „…“ || ‚…‘ || \n|-\n! Dutch\n| „…” || ‚…’\n| ”…” || ’…’ || \n|-\n! English\n| “…” || ‘…’\n| || || 1~2 pt\n|-\n! Estonian\n| «…» || ‹…›\n| „…“ || ‚…‘ || \n|-\n! Finnish\n| ”…” || ’…’\n| »…» || ›…› || \n|-\n! French (3)\n| « … » || ‹ … › (1)\n| “…” || ‘…’ || ¼ em\n|-\n! German (3)\n| „…“ || ‚…‘\n| »…« || ›…‹ || \n|-\n! Greek\n| «…» || ‹…›\n| “…„ || ‘…‚ || 1 pt\n|-\n! Hungarian\n| „…” || \n| »…« || || \n|-\n! Icelandic\n| „…“ || ‚…‘\n| || || \n|-\n! Irish\n| “…” || ‘…’\n| || || 1~2 pt\n|-\n! Italian (3)\n| «…» ||\n| “…” || ‘…’ || 1~2 pt\n|-\n! Japanese\n| 「…」 ||『…』 (2)\n| || || \n|-\n! Latvian\n| «…» || ‹…›\n| „…“ || ‚…‘ || \n|-\n! Lithuanian\n| „…“ || ‚…‘\n| «…» || ‹…› || \n|-\n! Norwegian\n| «…» || ‹…›\n| “…” || ‘…’ || \n|-\n! Polish\n| „…” ||\n| «…» (2) || || \n|-\n! Portuguese\n| “…” || ‘…’\n| «…» || ‹…› || 0~1 pt\n|-\n! Romanian\n| „…“ || ‚…‘\n| «…» || ‹…› || \n|-\n! Russian\n| «…» || ‹…›\n| „…“ || ‚…‘ || 1 pt\n|-\n! Serbian\n| „…“ || ‚…‘\n| »…« || ›…‹ || \n|-\n! Slovak\n| „…“ || ‚…‘\n| »…« || ›…‹ || \n|-\n! Slovene\n| „…“ || ‚…‘\n| »…« || ›…‹ || \n|-\n! Sorbian\n| „…“ || ‚…‘\n| || || \n|-\n! Spanish\n| “…” || ‘…’\n| «…» || ‹…› || 0~1 pt\n|-\n! Swedish\n| ”…” || ’…’\n| »…» || ›…› || \n|-\n! Switzerland (3)\n| «…» || ‹…›\n| || || \n|-\n! Turkish\n| «…» || ‹…›\n| “…„ || ‘…‚ || 0~1 pt\n|-\n! Ukrainian\n| «…» || ‹…›\n| „…“ || ‚…‘ || 1 pt\n|}\n# In longer quotes the leading quotation mark is repeated in front of each line.\n# Inside another quote.\n# In Switzerland the same quote signs are used for all languages: French, German, Italian.\nIn many languages and countries the double quote signs are used by default and either the single or the alternative ones for nested quotes or defining terms. Besides that the alternative forms, where existing, are often preferred for headings and other texts in larger font sizes.

Names for quotation marks

\n

Double quotation mark

\n* double quote\n* quotation mark\n* quote\n* dirk\n* double-glitch\n* double prime\n* literal mark\n* INTERCAL: rabbit-ears\n* ITU-T: dieresis\n* ITU-T: quotation marks\n* Swedish: dubbelfnutt See also: Unicode, ISO 8859-1 External references:\n* Curling Quotes in HTML, SGML, and XML This article (or an earlier version of it) contains material from FOLDOC, used with permission. Update as necessary. \n Category:Typography

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