Inverted Commas Revisited
Inverted Commas Revisited
Inverted Commas Revisited
Last week, in response to a canny question by a Year 11 student, I wrote about when to use single and double inverted commas. You can read that post here.
Yesterday I received a helpful message from professional editor, indexer and proof-reader Christopher Pipe informing me, ever so politely, that what I’d written was specious.
So here’s his much simpler guidance about when to use which:
The convention is simple:
EITHER use single quotation marks at all times except for quotations within quotations, which should be double
OR use double quotation marks at all times except for quotations within quotations, which should be single
The first option is more common in print in the UK.
The second option is more common in print in the US, and possibly in handwritten documents. It was pretty universal until twentieth-century typographic designers had the idea that they could simplify the appearance of text.
There are no circumstances where the nature of the text within the marks should dictate a change from single to double, or vice versa.
British newspapers generally use double quotation marks (i.e., follow old-fashioned/US practice), though, just to confuse the issue, I think The Times may now use single quotation marks in headlines, but double in text!
All part of the service.
Geoff Barton
Saturday 18 May, 2013
18:10
Saturday, 18 May 2013