Talk:Quotation marks in English

Code is not English

I have "logical" issues with the following bit:

Logical quotation differs from British style in its treatment of colons and semicolons. British and American styles both place them outside the quote marks all the time, while logical-technical style allows them to be placed inside. (An example would be a reference to the C programming language statement, 'printf("Hello, world");'.)

Anything that is written in code cannot automatically be regarded as English (except in the sense that English itself is a species of code). Code is literally a set of instructions to a processor; for computers, code is formatted in such a way that a compiler can readily translate it into machine language. So the example given is misleading because C uses the semicolon as an operator rather than as a punctuation mark. I'd even argue that the single quotes that buttress the C command line should be double quotes because (again) the double quotes inside the command line are operators, not punctuation.

A better example of the use of a semicolon or colon before an end-quote would be, 'The encyclopedist wrote "Common punctuation errors;" instead of "Common punctuation errors:".' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.18.19.169 (talk) 13:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The issue is not whether something is code or not but rather whether the period or comma could confuse the reader. I prefer "To write a long dash on Wikipedia, type in '—'." It serves a double purpose. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:58, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

We need better sources for LQ

We need more sources for so-called logical punctuation, WP:LQ. The instructions described in the WP:MoS differ from British style, so we can't just use Cambridge or Hart. I might be able to get my hands on a copy of the ACS style guide, but it would take a few days. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm contemplating removing the entire passage on LQ until we can find some better sources for it. There is a discussion on WT:MoS about it. Any input? Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we should not write anything anywhere that isn't supported by good sources—and I don't mean random websites. Who calls it "logical quotation," for example? SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 02:10, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

There are a few sources that call it "logical punctuation." While I would personally prefer to downplay this name because it erroneously implies that British practice is better than American, people do use it. "A printed handbook" "And a text on early modern English" I'm skeptical about Language Log. It's a blog written by professionals, but there's a lot of ranting. We should probably cite anything we see on LL as the specific professional opinion (these guys are mostly professors with PhDs) of each specific blogger.

Also, we should mention the U.S. and Canada specifically if that's what we mean. North America also includes Mexico and there are people there who speak English. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, logical punctuation I'm aware of, but you're calling it logical quotation (and your second source above is about a different issue). We need to stick to what good style guides say. No blogs, no personal opinions from Wikipedians, no terms not found in style guides. Source everything correctly and there will be less confusion. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 03:30, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Not any more I'm not. Changed this article's LQ to LP days ago.

We should include the terms "American style" and "British style." They are common and easy to understand. We can see "here" that the Chicago MoS refers to them as such. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

They're not British or American style, though, and that link doesn't work. Could we please avoid websites and stick to the traditional style guides? SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 03:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Try this one then. The relevant text is identical. [1] Both websites are quoting the Chicago Manual of Style.

From The Chicago Manual of Style: The British style of positioning periods and commas in relation to the closing quotation mark is based on the same logic that in the American system governs the placement of question marks and exclamation points: if they belong to the quoted material, they are placed within the closing quotation mark; if they belong to the including sentence as a whole, they are placed after the quotation mark. The British style is strongly advocated by some American language experts. In defense of nearly a century and a half of the American style, however, it may be said that it seems to have been working fairly well and has not resulted in serious miscommunication. Whereas there clearly is some risk with question marks and exclamation points, there seems little likelihood that readers will be misled concerning the period or comma. There may be some risk in such specialized material as textual criticism, but in that case authors and editors may take care to avoid the danger by alternative phrasing or by employing, in this exacting field, the exacting British system. In linguistic and philosophical works, specialized terms are regularly punctuated the British way, along with the use of single quotation marks. With these qualifications, the University of Chicago Press continues to recommend the American style for periods and commas.

If CMoS refers to it as "British style," "American style," "the British way" and "the American way," then it's a safe bet that it's okay for Wikipedia to do so as well. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:57, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

If one style came into existence in Britain and is still used by the overwhelming majority of writers there and the other style is used by the overwhelming majority of writers in the U.S., then it is safe to say that the first style is British and that the second is American even if they're other things too.

Look at it this way, just because I can also call it "deep dish pizza" doesn't mean I have to stop calling it "Chicago-style." It's a food item with more than one name. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Darkfrog, I'm requesting better sources, per WP:V, which is policy. No more random websites, please, and no personal opinions. It doesn't matter what you or I believe. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 04:18, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I am sitting here with the Chicago Manual of Style open in front of me. It doesn't say what you are claiming it says. If you want to quote or very carefully paraphrase, fine, but please stick to the sources very closely. And use the sources directly, not websites that say they're quoting them! SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 04:19, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The quote is not from the fifteenth edition, which you seem to have been using. According to Wilbers, it is from the fourteenth edition, pp. 160-61. That the two forms are commonly called "American style" and "British style" is not only my opinion but an observable fact.

In the meantime, we have another issue. While American rules, as per style guides such as MLA and Chicago, allow the placement of periods and commas outside the quotation marks in cases of keyboard entries and web addresses (etc.), this is not typographic punctuation. We should not refer to the practice as such.

Do your sources say "North America" or do they only discuss the style in question? It is not right to equate the U.S. and Canada with North America. There is more to the continent than those two (albeit large) countries. The style sheet that I provided may have been available online, but it did specifically mention Canada. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:19, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Chicago does say it's sometimes called British style, but it says nothing about American, and traditional punctuation is used in British fiction and by British journalists, so it's wrong to divide this rigidly along nationality, as many people have pointed out. The page now makes clear who tends to use what. Best to use the current version of Chicago. But please, two things (a) no more original research and (b) only really good sources, closely paraphrased. Doing those two things will solve all disputes. :) SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 05:24, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Example of the problem here: when you say things like "While American rules, as per style guides such as MLA and Chicago, allow the placement of periods and commas outside the quotation marks in cases of keyboard entries and web addresses (etc.), this is not typographic punctuation," I have no idea what you mean. No idea what American rules are, or who is saying it's not typographic punctuation, and who (apart from you) is making that distinction. Please cite your sources with page numbers, then I can look it up. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 05:28, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

While it may be best to use recent editions, that does not mean that previous ones become unreliable, especially not on an issue that later editions don't actively change. For something like "Is this called X?" observing that the Chicago Manual of Style calls something X should be valid. On that particular point, even "random" websites are valid. Perhaps we need a request for comment on this one.

American rules=what Chicago calls "American style," or American practice in its entirety. Typographic punctuation, as you've explained in the "history" section is the practice of putting periods and commas inside the quotation marks, originally so that the type wouldn't break. It seems to be that TP is something that American style does most of the time but not all the time. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:32, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it is called British style by the Chicago Manual of Style, an American publication? I very much doubt that any British (English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish) sources would call this the British style, and I have never seen it referred to as such in publications from that land. Nor do I see it widely used in Britain. This appears to be a case of Wikipedia taking one source as gospel, and the English citations given ('according to the sense') do not support the assertion in the page that this is a British style. 'Logical style, claimed by some sources to be a British style' I might accept. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.159.181.6 (talk) 09:32, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Question about sources

Darkfrog, are you willing to stop using websites and start consulting the style guides directly? SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 05:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

As a practical matter, Slim, I don't have all of those books in front of me. Consulting a reliable website is appropriate. This article already has many websites as sources. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:33, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Then please go to a library and borrow them. A huge amount of confusion is being caused by imprecise use of terms, both here and on the MoS, and I'm sorry to say this, but you are the cause of a fair bit of it. Also please note what this page says: "References: Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition; Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford; Merriam-Webster's Guide to Punctuation and Style, second edition."

Yes, and I was careful to use the book citation template that had a space for me to note that this point was from the fourteenth edition. Do you believe that the fourteenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style used the terms less precisely than the fifteenth used "British style"? Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:45, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, I haven't seen it. The problem is, nor have you. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 05:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

No, but I have seen the exact same text in multiple online sources, which I have no reason to believe do not meet Wikipedia's criteria for reliability. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Also bear in mind that if Chicago changed that section (and it's a big if at present), they did so for a reason. Why would you not want to respect that? SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 05:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Did Chicago say "This isn't called 'American style' and 'British style'"? If it corrected or otherwise directly contradicted the previous edition, then yes, the newer one would take precedence. But if it simply declines to mention it, then there is no reason not to hold the previous information as valid, especially when the information is "Chicago called this X." 05:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC) Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Here is an online source—the Chicago MoS website Q&A section. [2] The CMoS answer refers to the practice in question as "American-style punctuation."

For British: [3]Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The link to TJHSST regarding colons and semi-colons inside a quotation mark is dead . Alaphlosiam (talk) 14:51, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment, previous edition via the Internet

There are two questions: 1. Does a previous edition of a source become unsuitable for Wikipedia when a newer edition is published? and 2. Is it acceptable to cite this source through an intermediary, such as a website?

In this particular case, one user has found multiple websites that include the same direct quotation of the fourteenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (the fifteenth edition is the most current). This quotation is used to source the assertion that the Chicago Manual of Style refers to two specific sets of punctuation practices as "American style" and "British style." Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:44, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The issue here is twofold: (1) with style guides it's always better to consult the latest edition, and this article does rely on the latest edition as a key source, so we shouldn't be mixing editions; (2) Darkfrog hasn't consulted any of the sources, yet is trying to use them sourced to websites that may or may not be reporting them accurately, and may be using older editions. Darkfrog needs to read the style guides he wants to cite. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 05:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Just because one source is better than another doesn't mean that the lesser source does not meet Wikipedia's criteria. In this case, it isn't as if the fifteenth edition contradicts the information that I got from the fourteenth. Thousands of Wikipedia articles use websites as sources. The question is not whether copying directly from book would be better; I agree that it would be. It is about whether copying from a web page meets Wikipedia's standards; I believe it does. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

You didn't get any information from the 14th edition, because you haven't seen it. I am challenging your use of random websites, some of them perhaps self-published, as sources. Per V, please produce a good source that you have seen with your own eyes. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 05:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I have seen the websites with my own eyes. They are not random. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

But I am disputing them, so please provide the original source. I would like to know what it says, with a page number and a quote, per V. It is policy. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 06:01, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

[4] [5] [6] These three websites all attribute the exact same words to the Chicago Manual of Style. The third gives the edition and page number. I do not suppose that it would be any more difficult for you to track down the paper copy than it would be for me. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:10, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Considering that Wikipedia has a policy, WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, on how to cite sources indirectly, it is safe to say that Wikipedia does allow us to cite sources indirectly. As an example, it uses a website that quotes a book. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

"North America" or "U.S. and Canada"?

Unless our sources specifically say "North America"—the ones I've seen don't—we should say "the U.S. and Canada" or "Canada and the U.S." There are millions of North Americans who are neither American nor Canadian. I realize that in an article about English, many readers will assume that we are discussing the two major English-speaking North American countries, but I feel that equating "North America" with "North America but not Mexico" may offend Mexican readers. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:05, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, there's a big worry. Just noticed this thread from 2010. Here it is 6 years later. Give it a break. Dicklyon (talk) 07:18, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

It looks like you're the one who needs a break. Go cool down. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:33, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Original research

Darkfrog, please stop adding your own opinions; see WP:NOR. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 06:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Funny how they're my opinions when I keep showing you sources. A lot of them don't use any other term for these practices but "British" and "American."[7]

That the styles are commonly referred to as British and American is like saying that William Jefferson Clinton is known as "Bill Clinton." While we're on the topic, how about, if you want to downplay the styles' connections to British English and American English, you provide a source for that? The line "Although these practices are generally known as British and American, respectively, some American organizations, such as the American Chemical Society, use British conventions and some British organizations use American" would improve the article. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

In case it's of any interrest, I'll mention here that Cambridge University Press talks of "Cambridge" (British) & "International" (American). I don't know whether this appears in reliable sources. Maybe it's purely internal. I know about it from having worked for them. Peter jackson (talk) 11:13, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Great. However, I also recall seeing "international" used to mean "British/logical/that one." Adding the info would need a source (CUP manual of style would do) and a mention of that complication. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:14, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Irony

If you write what the article refers to as Irony at the end of a sentence, does the period go in or out of the quotes?

Ie: He shared his "wisdom". or He shared his "wisdom."

Bioniclepluslotr (talk) 19:31, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

In the American system, periods go inside regardless of why the quotation marks are used.

In the British/computer programmer system, the period would go outside in this case because the stop applies to the whole sentence rather than to just the word "wisdom." Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Curly quotes for this article

Just a few minutes ago an anonymous IP changed all the quotation marks in this article from straight to curly. This is against the current MOS but IMO it improves the clarity of the information in this particular article. I hope it will not reverted. It’s a very careful and thorough edit, and I wish it had been done by a registered user in case of disagreement. MJ (t • c) 16:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

It is against the MoS, but not for (solely) aesthetic reasons. Curly quotes can mess with browser search features. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:32, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

The search example at MOS is of a keyword with an apostrophe. Looking over this article, I can’t imagine anyone searching for any of the words with internal apostrophes. Also the caution is regarding mixed use, which is not a problem here. I think the bigger issue is that an explanation may be wanted for why this one article should be allowed to break with MOS. MJ (t • c) 05:09, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Good luck with that.

Someone might search for something like "Gagan,' greet." I do that a lot when I'm trying to get back to my place in a document that I'd broken off reading.

Why do you feel that curly quotes improve clarity of information? They don't seem to make the reader experience any better (or worse, apart from technical issues) from over here. Changing straight to curly doesn't seem much different from changing the font. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:54, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Because they distinguish opening and closing, especially helpful in the examples of nesting quotations. It may not make much visual difference when a single word is quoted, but when it’s more than a few words, they speed perception of beginnings and endings, especially when there’s other punctuation adjacent. MJ (t • c) 05:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Have there been any studies done on this or is this your own assessment? Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:51, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I imagine it’s been studied lots of places, but that is my own assessment, which is why I’m discussing it here. Anyone else? By the way, I have since noticed some useful occurrences of curly quotes in other punctuation articles, so this one isn’t a lone exception. MJ (t • c) 17:18, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

If you want other people with whom to discuss this matter in general, WT:MoS would be the place. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:52, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Elaboration on reasoning behind putting "." and "," inside of quotation marks

I was wondering about how the sorts for quotation marks were better protection than the sorts for spaces. The line would be filled up with sorts for spaces anyway, thus making the pressure on the commas and full stops identical, or am I mistaken here? The sourcing for this particular bit is from a newsgroup FAQ that mentions one person with an email address as the originator of this information. The email address, however, is dead. I believe that further explanation and verification is necessary, as otherwise – and especially in such brevity – the explanation is not utterly convincing. EDIT: In fact, aren't commas and full stops in most cases followed by a space anyway? How are they protected then? DonSqueak (talk) 02:48, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh, it's a reference to the physical bits of metal that people would use in old printing presses. What I've heard is that the metal bits for "." and "," were more slender and narrow than the ones for letters or wider typographical marks and that, if they were ever placed at the end of a line, they'd be more likely to break. Putting a thicker piece, like the one for ", after them prevented this. From what I'm guessing, they didn't use pieces to represent spaces; they just left them blank.

Maybe you should look for a book on the history of printing presses or the history of the written word.

I don't have any source on this but I imagine that, before the advent of printing presses, people just wrote their periods and commas underneath the quotation marks.

Here are some other websites that mention printing presses. I just did a quick Google search: a blog post. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks DarkFrog24. I understand the argument presented in the FAQ post (and I also mentioned the "sorts" in my question, which are the actual pieces you move into place in a printing press). I just dispute the validity, as seemingly this FAQ is the only source repeated all over the internet.

Spaces indeed also require sorts, since you fill the line from the side, and if you left it blank, the next letter would just be pushed in, hence eliminating the space. Also, the printing press is pressed on the paper from *above*, not from the side, so against what pressure would the sorts have to be protected? I hope you understand where my doubts are coming from. Also, in German, commas would *never* go inside quotation marks, so this is hardly a universal typesetters' rule (example from German: „Ich glaube nicht, dass das so stimmt“, sagte er.).

Long story short, I have searched Google for quite some time now, but nothing on the internet has so far been convincingly arguing this case. As I don't have access to a library with English books on typesetting here in Japan, I wonder if anybody in the rest of the world could find a convincing source. DonSqueak (talk) 04:26, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

If you feel that the information about the history of American style is insufficiently sourced, DonSqueak, then it would be appropriate for you to remove it until someone can find a new source. For my own curiosity, though, are you describing a modern printing press or the type of press that would have been around hundreds of years ago? (Huh, here's another blog source... But how can we know that they're not all quoting each other? Hey! The blog is just quoting Wikipedia!)

Please note that we do have sources for the American system also being called "typesetter's rules," even though it is not, as you have pointed out, universal to typesetting in all languages. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:36, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Valid use of two end marks?

In 'Typographical Considerations' it is mentioned that one cannot end a sentence with two end marks, but how do you construct:

Did Kennedy really say, "Ich bin ein Berliner!"?

I can see that if we question a question we could do without two question marks although this is flatly contradicted by which absolutely recommends using two question marks if it is logical. With the one exclamation and a question about it, surely one must use both? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Billben74 (talk • contribs) 12:23, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Misuse of "Irony"

I'm surprised that no one yet has caught the misuse of the word "irony" in this article. Irony does not mean what this article is using it to mean, Alanis Morissette notwithstanding. It does not mean to use a word in a sarcastic, skeptical, dubious sense at all. I'll have to get out my Thesaurus and see what is the best word to use for this heading.Wjhonson (talk) 12:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Why, what do you think irony means, if not this? I looked it up again to be sure, and that’s exactly what it means: stating the opposite of the intended meaning. MJ (t • c) 22:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Not only are you correct, but to change section headings for anything short of a serious problem is unacceptable. I am reverting the change. JonRichfield (talk) 19:48, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Not to beat a dead horse, but Wjhonson's comment not only mistakes the meaning of irony but misuses the word sarcastic and misreads Alanis Morissette's mistake to boot. Sarcasm's primary characteristic is the intent to demean and wound and only incidentally often employs irony to do so. Ms. Morissette's song uses ironic to mean contrary to expectations or hopes, if I infer correctly, and not at all to mean contrary to meaning. (How else to interpret rain on one's wedding day as ironic?)LINKBook (talk) 17:59, 6 October 2013 (UTC)LINKBook

Quotation marks and commas (proper order)

This article should be correct. Some examples improperly put the comma at the end of quoations, inside the quotation marks ("'Good morning, Frank,' greeted HAL.") The last comma does not belong to the quoted text and therefore does not belong inside the quotation marks. It should be: "Good morning, Frank", said HAL. Improper quotation of important people can end up in criminal charges, even if you added only a comma. I request the rewriting of this article. 217.234.55.254 (talk) 18:48, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, in both British and American English, dialogue for fictional conversations goes inside the quotation marks, as shown. (HAL is a fictional character from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey). This is according to Butcher's Copy Editing, as listed on the article's list of sources. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:13, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Use in repeated lines

What about the use of vertical quotation marks when they mean "same as line before - just look above". I usually see about 1-3 of them per line, spread out depending on the line length. Is there any specific terminology for this use, and how should it be added to this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.0.200.59 (talk) 17:20, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

You're thinking of ditto marks; same symbol, usually, as double quotes, but different use completely. Cheers, Lindsay^Hi 08:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Reported Speech

Is there a source for this sentence ~ [h]owever, another convention when quoting text in the body of a paragraph or sentence—for example, in an essay—is to recognize double quotation marks as marking an exact quotation, and single quotation marks as marking a paraphrased quotation or a quotation where grammar, pronouns, or plurality have been changed in order to fit the sentence containing the quotation ~ which is currently unsourced? I ask because it is quite radically in opposition to the usual (and previous in the article) explanations of quote marks as being for exactly quoted material. I fully realise that we use WP:V, not WP:IVENEVERHEARDOFTHAT, but i have to say that the only acceptable way i have ever run across, in academic institutions in the UK, Canada, and the USA, to change "grammar, pronouns, or plurality" has been the use of square brackets, as i do earlier in this query. Cheers, Lindsay^Hi 09:02, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The sentence in question has been in the article for some time ~ since this diff ~ but that doesn't make it accurate. I'd ask the person who put it in, but it was an IP, so i'm not sure there's any value going there. Nevertheless, i am adding a {{fact}} request, as i maintain that this completely contrary statement needs verification. Cheers, Lindsay^Hi 17:03, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

A couple of general sources for this:

• Fowler says, "Some ... also use the single marks for isolated words, short phrases, and anything that can hardly be called a formal quotation; this avoids giving much emphasis to such expressions, which is an advantage." Although this doesn't explicitly address words that have been very minorly paraphrased, I'd argue that this falls into the gray area Fowler describes of something that partakes of quotation but "can hardly be called a formal quotation". Fowler himself goes on to comment that this is a subjective area.
• In this Q & A column from the CBC, a correspondent states that "to add emphasis, show unusual or novel terminology and provide an indirect quote, the inverted comas (' ') are to be used." The columnist implicitly endorses this (along with the rest of the letter, not quoted), with the statement, "Your preferences are shared by a lot of people, especially in Britain."

I follow this convention myself, although I can't say quite where I picked it up from. JudahH (talk) 05:28, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Sources of the quotes

I feel like the source of the quotes should be cited - the first few are from 2001: A Space Odyssey, right? Also, I'm not sure that encyclopedic should use a movie source, instead of a generic sentence (eg. 'Hello,' said John.). --67.87.36.128 (talk) 01:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Error correction or clarification perhaps needed

Regarding Quotation_mark#Punctuation: What's the difference between:

• “Today”, said former Prime Minister Tony Blair, “I feel free from care and anxiety.” (British non-fiction only)
• “I feel happy,” said Björk, “carefree, and well.” (both major styles)

I can't help but wonder if one (or both) of these is broken. Since the article says: "In non-fiction, British publishers may permit placing punctuation that is not part of the person’s speech inside the quotation marks but prefer that it be placed outside." I'm guessing that the first example should have the final period outside the quotation marks. But really, I'm not sure what needs to happen.

Even (especially) if the examples are correctly punctuated, some sort of clarification, I think, would be in order. — gogobera (talk) 01:10, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Bjork would have said "I feel happy, carefree and well." The comma is present in the original quotation, so there is no issue with allowing it inside quotation marks. Blair would have said "Today I feel free from care and anxiety," so there could be such an issue. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:32, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Confusing wording

This part of the page contains wording that can be a bit confusing. Could someone clear it up a bit?

Quotation marks are written as a pair of opening and closing marks in either of two styles: single (‘…’) or double (“…”). Both styles are common in the English language; however, the single and double styling is considered to be the standard in British and American English respectively.

Especially this part:

Both styles are common in the English language; however, the single and double styling is considered to be the standard in British and American English respectively. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mayhaymate (talk • contribs) 14:42, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

my qoutation marks an the article r — and ———. Y?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.230.83.81 (talk) 16:33, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what the confusion is; seems clear enough to me. In English considered generally, we see both styles. The first, single quote marks, is considered standard in British English and the second, double quotation marks, is considered standard in American English.

Possibly the use of respectively is unfamiliar to you. It functions to associate one sequence of words one at a time with another sequence of words:

(1) single → (2) double styling

(1) British → (2 American English.

LINKBook (talk) 18:11, 6 October 2013 (UTC)LINKBook

Polish (and other languages?)

Some languages put the first mark low, the second high, like ,this'. It deserves a mention (especially because Poles (and maybe others) keep this form when writing in English because they're not aware of the difference. It'd be good to start a section but it'd be better to have more languages if it's true for others too. Malick78 (talk) 11:56, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree it would be an interesting section. Does anyone know how it works with asian languages, such as manderin?MilkStraw532 (talk) 19:22, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

There is already a whole article Non-English usage of quotation marks that includes Polish and many other languages.--Azarien (talk) 09:50, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

"Misnomer" claim removed as OR. Other statements kept

Okay, whoever put in the claim that "American style" is a misnomer, sorry, but that's WP:OR. If you want that to be part of the article, you have to find a source that says something to the effect of "'American style' is a misnomer." Personally, I don't believe that the fact that some Brits use American style and some Americans use British is enough to justify calling it a misnomer. I deleted the claim itself but kept the part about how not all American writers use American style; there were more enough sources to justify that (I even added another one). Also, if you can find a web site citing the style guide of the American Chemical Society, they use British style too. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Here's a copy of my response to your filing at WP:No original research/Noticeboard:

I've sourced this to the bejeezus belt, far more than is actually needed in the article, here: User:SMcCandlish/Logical quotation, though any/all of these sources could be added to the article. The WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV, which is far more serious, is the pushing of typesetters' a.k.a. printers' a.k.a. etc., etc., quotation marks as "American", and logical quotation as "British" (I've PROVEN that these labels are false). It's a blatant agenda. Wikipedia has been directly attacked in the British press for being inaccurate on this. (See essay; I cited that, too). My edits brought the article into line with actual reality. I don't need a source to say "American-style is a misnomer", though the Slate piece essentially does this, as do others I've cited in the essay. It's just wording expressing the cited facts; if someone doesn't like them exactly as they are, they can be tweaked, but reverting everything back to "American" is a falsification of the facts. Proponents of this hyper-nationalistic label, on whom the burden of proof lies, have to show reliable and independent sources for this term. The vast majority of published style guides are neither, because their authors and publisher have a very strong, vested monetary interest in falsely nationalizing punctuation and other grammar points, because this is what sells style guides. Those that do falsely patrioticize the issue do so only by ignoring demonstrable facts (which I've provided citations to in the essay), so they're not reliable as well as not independent of the subject. It's a bit like quoting guidebooks on American vs. British "psychics" for "facts" about the veracity of the claims made by the practitioners.

I dispute, based on the evidence I've gathered at User:SMcCandlish/Logical quotation, that the term "American quotation" can be taken seriously in this article. I have no issue with it being mentioned and noted as an inaccurate term, but it's use as the principal name of typesetters' quotation, a.k.a. printers' quotation a.k.a. traditional journalism quotation, etc., is a transgression of WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:SOAPBOX. The sources for it are neither reliable nor independent. (NB: I am an American.) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 00:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Revision: The text as of my writing isn't all that bad, but it still takes the nationalistic labels seriously, when they cannot actually be taken seriously, and there's a pile of evidence I'm amassed that they're misleading. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ I take that back. While the "American-pumping" isn't as awful as it could be, reverting everything back to "British" has actually published blatant falsehoods. The whole section is screwed. ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 00:13, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Wait a second, why do you think that the Chicago MoS and APA are not reliable, independent sources? This is not a rhetorical question. I actually want to know. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

We got a response over at the OR notice board: [8]

This person seems to feel that secondary sources should be given precedence over style guides but that you would actually have to find one that refers to the term as inaccurate/misnomers.

Frankly, I'm surprised we got one. I thought no one cared about this issue but us. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:32, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Entire "Punctuation" section has to be rewritten

We can put aside the argument about "American" for the time being, but the "British" bit has to go. The sources I've found (see above) conclusively prove that there is no "British style", there are several British styles, mostly similar but sometimes not, and all with different rationales, and most of them are, necessarily, not logical quotation. They're somewhere between logical and typesetters'/American quotation. I'm tempted to revert to what I wrote before, and then partially self-rv to use Darkfrog24's "American" instead of "typesetters'" until that separate issue is settled. But for the short term, this article is just factually incorrect on British punctuation, and a major British newspaper has laughed at us for it in public. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 00:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The sources that other editors and myself have provided refer to it as "British."[9] [10] [11] [12] Kindly provide sources of comparable or better quality showing that these sources are wrong. How about we start with a link to the newspaper article that you've just mentioned? EDIT: Okay, I read it. 1. He's not mocking Wikipedia and 2. he doesn't actually seem to be saying that we should stop calling it "British."

Your claim regarding "American" is that the fact that most American writers use it isn't enough, that 100% compliance is required for the term to be accurate. Well, not 100% of typesetters use it either. If 100% compliance were required, then neither "American" nor "typesetters" would be okay. Even if the terms "American" and "British" don't perfectly reflect what everyone does, this article should still use them because that's what the sources call them. It's kind of like how "Chicago-style pizza" can be baked in a restaurant in London or Paris and be listed on the menu as Chicago-style pizza.

At least we seem to agree on one thing: The article should say that not all Americans use American style etc. That is the truth. The difference seems to be that you think that makes "American" a misnomer and I don't. Why not just write the article using the terms that the sources use, state, as it currently states, that usage can cross national lines, and let the readers conclude for themselves.

You think that I'm disconnected from reality because I believe these styles are American and British and I find you to be disconnected from reality because you don't. We need a RFC on this. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:52, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Request for comment: Should the article use the terms "American" and "British"?

Should Wikipedia refer to two punctuation systems as "American" and "British" even if not all American/British writers and style guides use/require them?

One editor added the statement "The term 'American style' is a misnomer because..." to the article quotation mark. As sources, this editor referenced American style guides that require "British style" punctuation. A second editor removed the misnomer statement as original research.

Both parties agree that the article should say plainly that not all Americans use "American" style, etc., but the first editor believes that the article should also state that the terms "American style" and "British style" are inaccurate/misnomers. The second editor does not, believing that the article should not claim that the terms are inaccurate unless a reputable source that explicitly says so can be found.

Someone please come in and look at the sources, look at the article, and help us out. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

And now my own POV: I believe that the terms "American style" and "British style" are accurate because they describe what most American and British writers do. If 100% compliance were required, then we'd have to put "misnomer" next to "typesetters" and "logical" and "printers rules" too. The names "American" and "British" don't make the claim that every American writer does A and every British writer does B; rather, they make the claim that American style is associated with the U.S. and British style with the U.K. Even if this were not the case, these are the terms used by most of the most reputable sources, such as the APA Style Web Site and Chicago Manual of Style and others [13] [14].

Even if "American" style were no more American than a "French kiss" is French, we should still use the term because that is the name by which this practice is best known and the term used by the best-quality sources. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:04, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• Disagree Although your point is well taken, there seems to be too much wooliness in the British and American sources to identify one style as "British" and the other "American"; having to delineate all the exceptions defeats the purpose of making the distinction in the first place. As for the contention of original research, the quotation referenced above doesn't seem to bear that out. If a word seems to indicate something it does not, then it is inaccurate and a misnomer. I think it's just semantics.--Miniapolis (talk) 02:22, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Just to make sure we understand you correctly, with what are you disagreeing? To which quotation do you refer? The one saying "This is a misnomer because..." or the sources that SMC used to justify that statement? Do you think the article should read "The terms 'American' and 'British' are misnomers"? Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:11, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I just don't understand what's so bad about using the word "misnomer", since there is some disagreement about exactly what constitutes American and British usage; frankly, I don't think this fine point justifies so much disagreement.--Miniapolis (talk) 01:32, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, there's some background here. SMC is one of a couple of linguistic revisionists who are out to "improve" the English language by, among other things, trying to get everyone to abandon American style punctuation for British. The main tactic is to pretend that American rules don't really require commas-in, that it's just a quirk or a tradition. Flip side: I want Wikipedia's MoS to change its rule requiring British punctuation only (WP:LQ) and permit American punctuation on an ENGVAR basis.

SMC is trying to frame American punctuation as old-fashioned with words like "typesetters" and thinks that I'm trying to frame it as national with terms like "American" and "British." The difference is that American punctuation actually is American, at least in that it is what the overwhelming majority of American writers do and what the overwhelming majority of American style guides require. "British" is accurate for the same reasons and also because the British style was invented in Britain in 1906.

So you could make the case either way. You could say "The term 'American' is inaccurate because not 100% of Americans do this" or you could say "The term 'American' is accurate because 98% of Americans do this." (Stat not drawn to scale.) The question is whether Wikipedia editors are supposed to make cases themselves or cite sources that make those cases. I think that SMC should have to find a source referring to these terms as inaccurate rather than place his own conclusions in the article.

You could accuse either SMC or myself of POV, but the sources agree with me. Most of them use the terms "American" and "British." Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:07, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

• Follow sources If reliable sources refer to them as American and British, the article should do so. The terms should not be labeled 'a misnomer' unless reliable sources also call them so. FurrySings (talk) 13:10, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
• Change focus I cannot really see why it is necessary to label the two different uses, particularly when there is some dispute about those labels. It seems to me that it would be just as accurate ~ possibly even more so ~ to say a majority of American writers use this style or this is general usage in the UK, though many authors choose not to or the frequent guidance by US style guides is this pattern. This would avoid the dispute about whether either one is or is not Foovian.

On a slightly different note, Darkfrog, i'd suggest that you might reread what you wrote in reply to Miniapolis and redact or retract the portion in which you ascribe character and motives to another editor. At all times, perhaps especially during an RfC, it's best practice to refrain from commenting on the editor (and his motives). Please don't consider this an admonition, just a reminder. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 14:45, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

That was my point; this seems to be more of an editing conflict than an editing disagreement. It would be great if SMC would respond to this RFC.--Miniapolis (talk) 18:02, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Lindsay, that solution might work if we only had a paragraph saying that there were two different styles, but the article goes on to explain how they are different, giving examples. It helps to have something to call them. The paragraphs that introduce those examples already say something very close to what you're describing—as SMC and I both seem to believe that they should. Do you think that the examples would make more sense if grouped by style rather than by usage? (Right now they're organized more or less as follows: "For sentence fragments, style A does this and style B does that. For short-form works, style A does this and style B does that. For fiction dialogue, they both do this. For non-fiction dialogue, A does this and B does that." If we rearranged it as "A does this for fragments, this for short-form works, this for fiction dialogue and this for non-fiction dialogue. B does that for fragments, that for short-form works, this for fiction dialogue and that for non-fiction dialogue," then we could get around this problem, but the article might become less informative.)

It's my understanding that it's the RFC tag itself that must be neutral and that I may give my own assessments and conclusions in my own comments. After all, Miniapolis did specifically ask why this was a big deal. I've worked with SMC long enough to be able to make a reasonably educated guess about what's motivating these edits. We just had a long talk about it on SMC's talk page and SMC did just write a Wikipedia essay on this very topic. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:53, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The more I thought about your idea, Lindsay, the less impractical it seemed. I gave it a shot and reorganized the section to minimize the need for labels. Please take a look. Frankly, I think the article was easier to read before, and this doesn't completely solve our problem. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

RFC response: As the article stands at present it strikes me (speaking as an editor that happens to be neither British nor American, and who has not seen either the article or the discussion to date) as thoroughly comprehensible, plausible, inoffensive, natural and coherent. Firstly, given the explanation in the article, the term "misnomer" is unnecessary at best, because it is quite clear in context that "British" and "American" are not represented as being definitive but rather as terms of convenience. The use of quotation marks in the text stresses the point adequately, possibly even slightly excessively (though, given the disagreement, that seems justifiable). Secondly, given that the terms are indicative rather than definitive, I should regard "misnomer" itself as a misnomer in context — no categorical terminology is under consideration. I support omission of the term absolutely; in context it is quite unnecessary, somewhat excessive, and slightly undesirable. JonRichfield (talk) 09:36, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Will remove dispute tag tomorrow

This matter seems to have been dealt with. If there are no further comments, I will remove the dispute tag tomorrow. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

improve this example?

your example:

If Hal says: "All systems are functional," then:

   Incorrect: Hal said "everything was going extremely well."
   Correct: Hal said that everything was going extremely well. 

could be much improved by changing it to:

If Hal said: "All systems are functional," then he meant "everything was going extremely well." (incorrect)

everything was going extremely well. (correct)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.168.75.9 (talk) 16:59, 2 January 2012 (UTC) 

Missing discussion for multiple paragraph quotations

Where is any discussion of the application of quotation marks to distinguish multiple-paragraph quotation - and of course vs. the alternative of setting off the entire multi-paragraph section with double indents on both margins to separate from the main body.Danleywolfe (talk) 00:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

History

The History section does not enlighten us at all - nor does Quotation mark glyphs Wiki q.v. The major alternative glyph, the Guillemet (q.v. Wiki) *does* tell us about a typesetter in 1525-1598 AD and which languages use it. By comparison, where did the 66/99 marks come from; what was their inspiration - does anyone know anything about any of this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.158.30.10 (talk) 00:52, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Do other languages use "American-style" quotes?

This is an issue that had been confusing me for some time... And just right now I could understand why certain English texts use a norm like that of Brazilian Portuguese (i.e. the "English" one), and some don't (originally I thought a group out of the two was misspelling it, but then I realised it had to be an amazingly widespread 'error' out of such conclusion). How many languages, if any, use comma before the last quotation mark as in the USA? 177.65.15.49 (talk) 23:52, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, the norm in Brazilian Portuguese is to use quotation marks before dots, but in this case I think it is part of a wider rule in languages other than English... And c'mon people, post something here. It's been a week. 177.65.15.49 (talk) 21:11, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Brands

When refering brand names do we use quotes or capital letters? — Preceding unsigned comment added by FoxxyFuyumi (talk • contribs) 14:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Treat a brand name as an ordinary proper noun. —Tamfang (talk) 18:12, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Why does this article only discuss English use of quotation marks?

I don't understand why Wikipedia's main article about quotation marks is written from an Anglocentric viewpoint, instead of discussing the use of quotation marks in general, in all languages. If this article is only about the use of quotation marks in English, then why isn't it titled Use of quotation marks in English? Jarble (talk) 16:05, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia. What is your beef? –
 – Gareth Griffith-Jones |The Welsh Buzzard|— 20:48, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is the Wikipedia written in English, but it should not be the Wikipedia that ignores the existence of everything non-English. I agree that the article should either be expanded or renamed (e.g. to "Quotation marks in English"). —BarrelProof (talk) 21:42, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

American Bar Association no longer uses logical quotation

I have removed the reference to the ABA Journal requiring the use of logical quotation (a.k.a. British style) punctuation. While this was true in 1951, and some point in the past decades, the American Bar Association (ABA) decided that it would use the overwhelming majority quotation punctuation practices prevalent in the United States in the ABA Journal, as well as its many other publications. As of 2013, the ABA does not maintain a separate internal style guide for its publications, but on its webpage for attorney submissions for publication, it makes a crystal clear statement that it relies on The Chicago Manual of Style "for all style, punctuation, and capitalization matters in written text as well as general rules of book making." (Please see [15].) I also provide two links to current ABA Journal articles that clearly demonstrate that the Journal is using traditional quotation punctuation in its flagship monthly publication, and not logical quotation. (Please see [16] and [17].) Anyone who wishes to further verify this is welcome to browse other online articles of the ABA Journal from the links provided. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:31, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

article need some Guillemet citation and explain

see Guillemet --Krauss (talk) 12:09, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

American quotations - why

Kinda needs an explanation about how this could have occurred in the first place... Turkeyphan^t 02:59, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

What, you mean why American punctuation is the way it is? Why do the British spell "center" as if it were pronounced "senn-treh"—because it doesn't work any worse than doing it the other way.

I heard once that it's from printing, that the narrow period and comma keys would break if they were placed on the end of a line, but the only source for that was something that someone said in a forum once. As for British style, it was first advocated by Fowler and Fowler in their book The King's English in 1906. Before that, everyone used American style.

If you can find a better source, then we could certainly do a section on the history of American and British punctuation styles, but it would be phrased neutrally. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:13, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Answer: We British spell it as centre because it comes from the Latin centrum, from Ancient Greek κέντρον (kéntron, “centre”). So which is the more correct? — | Gareth Griffith-Jones |The WelshBuzzard| — 19:49, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Neither. That's the point. The British spelling is closer to the root word's spelling but the American spelling is closer to the current word's pronunciation. The British put a unnecessary U in "harbor" as well. But the only people who pronounce the words "cen-treh" instead of "center" or "har-boor" instead of "harbor" are those who are still learning how to read. Both spelling systems work. In the same way, American punctuation, despite the assumption that it less logical than British style, has never caused even one reported case of miscommunication on Wikipedia and none that I've seen off it. There is no logical reason to prefer one style to the other from a functionality perspective. It is solely a matter of habit and personal taste.

If you or Turkey want to write a section on the origins of these two styles, you're free to look up sources and draft it. If you want to write a section about professional criticism of either or both styles, which is what I'm guessing that Turkey really wants, you are also free to look up sources and draft one, but its tone must be neutral. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:25, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

LOL. There is no noticeboard for "reporting" confusion on Wikipedia caused by non-MoS-readers using typographers' ("American") quotation. I encounter such problems regularly, fix them as best I can and move on with my gnoming, just like everyone else does. No one on WP obsesses about this American punctuation thing. Oh, well there is one editor who does.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:07, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Are you really posting a personal attack almost a year after the conversation ended? Well to answer, all the many times I've asked, "Hey, has anyone ever seen American punctuation cause any problems on Wikipedia?" you have been silent. Keep in mind that by "problems," I mean actual, non-imaginary problems, like miscommunication or an error in subsequent editing and not that "American punctuation tells the reader that the comma is part of the song title!! It causes problems by existing!!" nonsense. That's along the same lines as "British spelling tells people that 'centre' is pronounced 'senn-treh.'" Neither American punctuation nor British spelling makes any such claim. It's not a problem; it's a pet peeve of your own. But if you've actually seen one, diffs please. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:09, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps I haven't been clear. "It is solely a matter of habit and personal taste." I guess that's where we disagree. There is a logical reason to prefer one over the other (even implicitly acknowledged in their names). And one can only assume the less logical version came after the other, and hence there was a decision made to adopt it. Given there are only negatives and no positives, it would be useful for the article to address the reasoning behind using this and even perpetuating it now it's simple to become aware of the alternative. Turkeyphan^t 14:17, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Adding: I see now that apparently the switch to the less logical version actually came later (at least in printed form). In this case, the question should be why did the American version change to the more sensible option when the British version did? What's the reason for not adopting a change that was widespread elsewhere? Turkeyphan^t 14:20, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

You have it backwards. Everyone used to use American style. Then Fowler and Fowler wrote their 1906 book and the British started leaving their commas untucked.

There are actually several logical reasons to prefer American style. For one, American style is easier to teach, easier to learn, easier to use and easier to copy-edit. Whether that is more or less important than appealing to an abstract sense of "Well using the same rule that we use for question marks makes more sense to me" is solely a matter of habit and taste. People tend to prefer the style that they are more used to.

If British style really were better, then it would work better than American style in practice, and it doesn't. There's been no study showing either to be associated with differences in reading comprehension or later typos, and a bit of evidence to the contrary. If you study the way the human brain processes images, you will not find this surprising. Our readers aren't computers; they don't parse text character-for-character: Csae in pnoit.

The main issue, though, is the article. Is there something that you want to add to or remove from the article? Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:58, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Read my correct. As for claims that they are "easier to teach, easier to learn, easier to use and easier to copy-edit" - surely you have this the wrong way round? The more logical version is, if it's not obvious already, logically easier to teach, easier to learn, easier to use and easier to copy-edit. Of course people prefer the more usual style but that doesn't answer the question I've asked. And it's clearly false to claim "If British style really were better, then it would work better than American style in practice, and it doesn't." See the discussion above about the CMoS for example.

Re: the article. See my original talk comment. After reading I had more questions than answers. I feel it's appropriate to address as best we can. Turkeyphan^t 16:24, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Darkfrog24 is correct; a system with only one pattern is easier than a system with multiple patterns. I also do not fully understand what issue the original talk comment ("Kinda needs an explanation...") is addressing in the article. Doremo (talk) 16:36, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Clearly ease is subjective. But I'd still claim the logical choice is "easier to teach, easier to learn, easier to use and easier to copy-edit" and at the very worst, equal. Turkeyphan^t 17:58, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

It's also worth mentioning that both systems have only "one" pattern. It depends how you define the pattern. Turkeyphan^t 17:59, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

No I don't have it the wrong way around. You only think British style is easier because you are used to it. But if you take someone not familiar with either style and say, "Keep periods and commas inside all the time," they will find that easier than "figure out whether the period or comma 'belongs' to the words inside the quotation marks using complex grammatical rules; here, it might be easier if you do it with question marks first." This actually isn't subjective. You can go to elementary schools and ESL schools and observe it. The idea that British style is more logical is subjective.

I think Turkeyphan just doesn't like American style and wants to talk about that for a bit. For now, I don't mind obliging. I like to talk about this issue too. TP, if I'm wrong and you want to talk about the article, why don't you say which specific sentences troubled you? Then we can work out a clearer way to phrase the information. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:06, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

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Logical and British quotation are/are not the same thing

While various sources lump them together and gloss over the differences, they're easily and clearly distinguishable, and have a different rationale. LQ always puts outside the final quotation mark any terminal punctuation that was not in the original source, and does not modify the quoted punctuation (except in a square-bracketed interpolation), while British (i.e. Oxford/Hart's/Fowler's) usually puts it outside, but permits exceptions for both inserting extraneous punctuation and modifying the quoted punctuation, within the quotation, if the writer feels it serves the "sense" of the sentence better. Neither are possible in logical quotation, which is always faithful to the source material. I'll source this in detail after I finish the citation digging and formatting.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:28, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

According to the sources, they are two names for the same thing:

There are a few sources that refer to the system "British" and "logical" in the same passage.

• Grammar Commnet "But in England you would write: My favorite poem is Robert Frost's 'Design'. The placement of marks other than periods and commas follows the logic that quotation marks should accompany (be right next to) the text being quoted or set apart as a title."
• David Marsh writing in The Guardian:'the British style', which 'rules on message and bulletin boards'. Jolly good."
• Ben Yagoda in Slate referring to others: "copious examples of the 'outside' technique—which readers of Virginia Woolf and The Guardian will recognize as the British style" (It's also Yagoda's own opinion but, like Marsh and CMoS I'm skeptical about his understanding of the matter.)
• Mark Nichol

Far more common are sources that use either the name "British" or "logical" but describe the same system:

• Chicago Manual of Style: "The British style of positioning periods and commas in relation to the closing quotation mark is based on the same logic that in the American system governs the placement of question marks and exclamation points"
• Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies: "Punctuation marks are placed inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation; this system is referred to as logical quotation."
• Scientific Style and Format: "In the British style (OUP 1983), all signs of punctuation used with words and quotation marks must be placed according to the sense."

If anyone wants to see more sources that deal with this issue, there is a large list compiled here: [18]

SmC, I understand that you think your assertions are true and feel strongly about them, but on Wikipedia, it's verifiability, not truth. Sources have been provided showing that these are two names for the same practice and that they are used interchangeably by RS. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:05, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Been over this 50-odd times with you already. It doesn't matter how many sources you find that gloss over the distinction between logical and British quotation because getting into the distinction isn't relevant to their immediately context, it does nothing to magically erase the fact that the style guides that define these styles clearly distinguish two distinct styles, one called logical, one called (most often) British, and that they are significantly different. No amount of ignoring sources you don't like will ever make that fact go away. I'm not sure why this is not getting through to you. Let's make it simple: If I write a book that says liberals and communists (or conservatives and fascists) are the same thing, this doesn't make it true, no matter how many other sources also blur the distinction, because other reliable sources distinguish them in detail. Your deletion of my dispute tag (along with deletion of a reliable soruce and insertion of a self-published one) are disruptive.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:38, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

SmC, remember over in the animate vs inanimate discussion, when you said the distinction was to use animate pronouns for fictional characters in-universe and inanimate out-of-universe, but really you just thought that was the way it worked? This could be what's going on here. You're drawing a distinction—a perfectly logical distinction—but according to the sources, that isn't how English really works.

Here's a thought. There are lots of sources that say. "There's American style; it goes like this. There's British style; it goes like that," clearly showing that they're talking about two different systems (by putting them in different paragraphs, etc.). Do you have one that says, "There's British style; it goes like this. There's logical style; it goes like that" while clearly showing that they're two different things and not the same thing that works in more than one way? Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:52, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Remember over on another page, you tried the same bogus ad hominem tactic, and it made you look silly, because you farcically misrepresented my position in that earlier debate, and you come across as if you can't differentiate between two arguments about different things? Oh, wait, that seems to directly mirror what's going on in all of these debates; you simply aren't rationally parsing them. How about that? (Don't like this tone? Stop using it with me.) Direct comparison source: Of course we have a source that does that, the Guardian article already cited. But of course that article doesn't exist, or doesn't say what it says, as long as you don't want it to.

It wouldn't matter anyway. If we have RS that say "cars do not have truck beds" and other RS that say "pick-up trucks are like cars, but have truck beds", it doesn't matter how many sources you can find that, for whatever convenience reason they may have, lump trucks in with cars (e.g. because they're all about water vehicles and mention land vehicles in passing, as "cars", only to distinguish them from water vehicles). The fact that cars are distinguishable in reliable sources, per specific features of them, cannot be magically erased. It's perfectly fine to say that some sources lump trucks in with cars; it's not okay to say in WP's voice that trucks and cars are identical, that "car" and "truck" are two names for exactly the same thing, and deny any mention of their distinction. That's precisely what you're trying to do. We also don't need any direct-comparison sources, since the style guides publish definitions, and they're clearly distinguishable. I don't need a source that directly compares a pool ball and 1/8 ounce of cocaine, side by side, to write about how the word "8-ball" has more than one meaning, and to write about those meanings separately, nor to prevent you from trying to change pool articles to say that the games are played with drug baggies, not balls. That's also exactly what you're trying to do here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:01, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

What ad hominem attack? Pointing out that you've read too much into things before? You've said far worse and far less substantiated things about me.

SmC, you think the sources are wrong. You're allowed to have an opinion, but you need to stop pretending that I'm doing something wrong by preferring sourced material to whatever conclusions you've drawn on your own. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:24, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I've never said the sources are wrong, only what you're doing with them. I never claimed you attacked me; ad homimen is logic fallacy. That's twice in one post you've falsified my statements. Just like you're doing with the sources.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:58, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

SmC, it is not civil to call people liars. You misinterpret me fairly often and I don't call you a liar, do I?

But yes, when you say things like, "Just because some sources use the terms interchangeably doesn't mean they really are the same thing," it does look like you think they're wrong. Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:30, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

It is entirely possible that some reliable sources draw a distinction between these two terms and others do not. It is important to keep in mind that a term does not necessarily have a single meaning that is the true and correct meaning bestowed by the masters of the language and that all other uses of the term are incorrect. Please remember that English is a descriptive language, not a prescriptive one. In this situation, the article should say something like "some authors draw a distinction between these two terms, using "logical quotation to mean ... and using "British quotation to mean ...", rather than something like "Properly, logical quotation means ... and British quotation has a different meaning which is ..., although some authors make the mistake of confusing them." —BarrelProof (talk) 16:05, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

If it could be shown that some sources do distinguish between them and others do not, then it would probably would be reasonable to say something like that—though considering the number and quality of sources that do consider them the same, referring to doing so as a "mistake" would probably be too much. Do you know of any sources that say "logical is X and British is Y" or "logical and British differ from each other in manner Z"? Another way to show that sources distinguish between them would be to find a group of sources that say "logical" and describe the system one way and another group that say "British" and describe it a different way.

As for whether English is descriptive or prescriptive, I'd say it's more relevant that this article is meant to be descriptive. If you mean using descriptive or prescriptive sources, though, then we should of course use both style guides and any sociolinguistic studies that apply. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:04, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Are you saying there are no cited reliable sources that say they are different? —BarrelProof (talk) 23:39, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

None that I've ever seen, no. Do you know of any? Did Language Log ever address this? If so, we could say something like, "Professor Smartness, writing in Language Log says these are best considered two different systems." Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:47, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

And just to head off anything that might trouble anyone's blood pressure, SMC believes that he has provided sources that say this, but I read them, and they don't. For example, the Guardian article that I cited in my first post of this thread, SMC seems to think this author says they're different, but I read it and I found that it says they're the same. So please, anything that either of us cites, just look at it for yourself. That's what the links are for. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:55, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Then we have nothing to discuss here. I'm removing the unsupported tag from the article. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:41, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE weight and source deletion

Darkfrog24 (talk · contribs), presently engaged in a three-day editwarring campaign at WP:MOS and WT:MOS, just deleted a reliable and properly cited source here at Quotation marks in English [19] (cite of a neutral article about logical quotation by a language professor and well-known writer on English language usage, that was used for multiple citations in the article, which DF broke by doing so), and replaced it with an anti-LQ rant from someone's blog. Classic WP:UNDUE and WP:POV. This should be reverted, but I don't want to do it myself any time soon, lest I be seen as editwarring, too.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:19, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

SmC, I replaced the Yagoda source because you said that it wasn't good enough.[20] It's also been criticized by Marsh and CMoS, but no, it wouldn't be edit warring if you put it back alongside the other sources.

As for the Nichol article, if you click the "About Us" link you'll see that Nichol, like Yagoda, is an expert in this field, so it is usable per WP:SPS. Frankly, I'm a little insulted. Of course I checked it out before I used it in the article space. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:46, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Please stop making up things about what I said. Here's a direct quote of what I said in that diff: "Logical and British are not the same, just similar." Here's another about the Yagoda article: "neutral source" [21], and I have three more like it I can dig up (professor notable for language publication, etc.), along with you trying to rely on it as a reliable source, at WT:MOS, when it suits you. My criticism relating to the Yagoda source is you using OR to say things it doesn't actually say, and to treat it like something it isn't (what it is, is an op-ed for a general audience, on a language usage trend, nothing more, and certain not a style guide nor any authoritative source on what names of things and how they differ in fine details that he does not get into). Being an expert doesn't automatically everything someone puts out reliable, and whether it's a usable source depends on how it's used in what context. This problem here is undue weight and misuse of a source to push a PoV agenda. The same one you've been disrupting MoS with for three days (well, 6 years, really).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:36, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm not making it up. SMcC, it is entirely possible to misinterpret what someone is saying without being malicious. You do it to me all the time. My belief that you thought the Yagoda source was no good was based on your edit summary: [22] If that's not what you meant, that's one thing, but don't act like I'm some wrongdoer for failing to read your mind. You presumably read my own edit summary, which said "removing contested Yagoda source," and didn't figure out that I thought you were contesting it. Does that mean you're making things up? And I removed your dispute tag because it looked like you were asking for better sources, which I provided. You've been snarling at nothing in the shadows for weeks now. Take a break if you need to.

What OR? If you're going to throw accusations at me, then be clear about what you're talking about. It's starting to look like you're just scattering your posts with unsubstantiated accusations just to make me look bad.

Of course the propriety of using sources depends on context. That's why you shouldn't object to the Nichol article. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:34, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Making things up does not require malice, just unreality. My edit summary said "disputing incorrect assertion that logical and British are identical". Given that we've been arguing round in circles for three days about WP saying in WP's voice that they are the same is false, my meaning was obvious (and should have been anyway; I didn't say "disputing unreliable source" or anything to that effect. Twice you're trying to make me feel guilty for misleading you, but I didn't mislead you, you just made up some notion in your own head. If we were take this "I was doing it because you wanted me to" spiel seriously. No one deletes a reliable source to insert another source; you add the new source. This is one of the least effective attempts at gaslighting I've ever encountered. My objection, however, was that you deleted the source without consensus or discussion to make a WP:POINTy insertion of a biased SPS in an inappropriate place, breaking multiple citations in the process. The Yagoda source would have had to go back in no matter what, because other passages cited it. I've already explained what your OR is, about a dozen times. I don't have to go into it on every page you want to ask again after already being told. Your explanation for why you removed my dispute tag is bogus, since you reverted two of them in a row flagging different problems. This "who, me?" act is not going to convince anyone of anything. Skipping the rest of this because it's nothing to do with this article and improving it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:41, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Okay, right there, see where you say, "you're trying to make me feel guilty for misleading you"? No I'm not. What I'm actually trying to do is get you to see that even if "I don't like the Yagoda source" isn't what you meant, it is still not that out there for me to think that it was. Notice: You were wrong about what I meant. Does that make you a liar? No. Does it make you a vicious edit warrer? No. What did I do about it? Tell you what I actually meant because it was just an honest mistake, which you made because you're not a mind-reader. Now it's a non-issue. Now you try.

No, but it is reasonable to replace a source that has been contested as unreliable, which is what I thought you were doing. Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:37, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I am also puzzled by the need to insert an anti-logical punctuation source in the article at this point. It seems needlessly combative and distracting. All we need/should want is a source that defines logical punctuation and not one that rants about it. SQGibbon (talk) 21:26, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

That might bear up if the source were being used to say negative things about British/logical style, but it isn't. The Nichol article is being used as a source for "logical punctuation is another word for British style." This is the same statement that the pro-British/logical Yagoda article was supporting. If anything, the fact that these two writers with opposite opinions of the system agree about the facts should give them more weight.

As for sources that define British style without giving value judgments, there's the Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies under the name "logical" and SSF under "British." Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:46, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Whatever your circular reasoning, multiple editors now object, so you don't have consensus to insert it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:36, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

You mean one person with an ongoing grudge-match content dispute objected on reflex, someone else asked a question about it (which may have been answered to his or her satisfaction), and one other person does want it in? No consensus to remove it either. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:28, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

SQGibbon did not ask a question. Why do you insist on distorting what people say in every damned discussion? And accusing of bad faith when people raise objections? This gives the lie, by the way, to your "oh, I'm only deleting dispute tags because I thought I resolved them for you." You are flip-flopping back and forth between "I'm just being helpful" and "go screw yourself" modes. Get your act straight, LOL. The source is disputed by multiple editors, and you have not addressed anything about their objections. It comes out. (Maybe it could go back in later, in a more appropriate way, as a primary source for something, if there's a need for it, and it's cited for the limited things primary sources can be used for, and directly attributed. Right now, though, it's a WP:PSTS policy violation. That's an additional objection, BTW.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:41, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

If you think I'm wrong about what SQG meant, just ping SQG and ask.

SMC, you've gotten pretty invested in this multi-front attack of yours, and one other guy came in with one other issue, which I've addressed. That's not exactly consensus to remove. But if you want to take it to NPOVN, that's fine with me. Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:37, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Sheesh, I didn't realize that this was an ongoing feud. The use of this source is strange. Yes it technically serves the purpose of defining logical punctuation it's just not the sort of source that one would generally use in a neutral article. If you can't see this then I'm really not sure what else there is to say without joining in a protracted feud that I am not going to participate in. Also, I was not asking a question. I do find the use of that particular source in this particular instance contrary to the spirit of creating a neutral encyclopedic article. SQGibbon (talk) 22:18, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure you're allowed to say this at the NPOVN filing if you want to.

Honestly, I didn't figure anyone would mind this article's tone; no one minded using Yagoda in this way, and he's pretty non-neutral himself. But like I said, I added this article in the first place because I thought the existing source for this point had been challenged, and it's looking like that's a non-issue. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:03, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

We're up [23]. Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:44, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

We're down [24]. Looks like no one cares about this but us. We can try again if you want, but like I said to SmC above, I don't mind if the Yagoda source is put back alongside the Nichol one. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:02, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Lift order of punctuation section from Full stop?

Moved to Full stop § Fowler and Fowler advocated American style?

The section on punctuation placement seems messy. A lot of that is because its current format is a compromise dating from an RfC a few years back. One solution would be to remodel this section based on Full_stop#Punctuation_styles_when_quoting, which was carefully edited earlier this year. It's clear, it covers national crossover, and it's a lot shorter (we might want to add to it a little). Thoughts? Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:40, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The description of British style there does not match what I took logical style to mean, and is not sourced. I thought "according to grammatical sense" meant it is OK to include the punctuation inside if it was part of the material quoted, whether or not it also applied to the sentence as a whole. Perhaps I misunderstood? Dicklyon (talk) 04:18, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

It's sourced with Scientific Style and Format (number 20) and JISS (number 19). How would you improve upon it? Darkfrog24 (talk) 09:01, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Neither source verifies that "according to the sense" means what it says it means there. Whose interpretation was this? Ah, this diff is what fails to verify. It's you. Dicklyon (talk) 16:10, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe that explains why you were claiming so many featured articles didn't conform to LQ. You should learn what it is. Anyway, let's fix that one, not lift it into this article. Dicklyon (talk) 16:15, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

JISS says "Punctuation marks are placed inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation; this system is referred to as logical quotation" and gives the following examples [25]:

Jane said that the situation is ‘deplorable’. (When a sentence fragment is quoted, the period is outside.)

Jane said, ‘The situation is deplorable.’ (The period is part of the quoted text.)

Chris asked, ‘Are you coming?’ (When quoting a question, the question mark belongs inside because the quoted text itself was a question.)

Did Chris say, ‘Come with me’? (The very quote is being questioned, so here, the question mark is correctly outside; the period in the original quote is omitted.)

Scientific Style and Format says: "In the British style (OUP 1983), all signs of punctuation used with words and quotation marks must be placed according to the sense." It gives several examples but here are two (scroll down to the next page [26]):

He saw the ecological effects as 'an utter disaster'.

His brief note was 'A disaster!'.

There are more. Do these examples provide the verification that you need? If not, what do you think would be better? Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:53, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Not really. The definition that JISS gives is OK: "Punctuation marks are placed inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation; this system is referred to as logical quotation." That's OK. And the example Jane said that the situation is ‘deplorable’. is OK, too. But then they have that odd explanatory parenthetical that goes too far: (When a sentence fragment is quoted, the period is outside.) Here I must presume that they overrreached in their explanation, and didn't mean that ALL sentence fragments would require putting the punctuation outside, and didn't mean to further restrict the definition via that explanation. This is just odd, as an interpretation of "grammatical sense" or of "only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation". Your second source does not seem to imply such a jump, and I've not seen it in other sources (but I'd have to go back and study to know for sure). Dicklyon (talk) 00:06, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, we have literally dozens of other sources to choose from. What information do you think should be added. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:32, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I'll just start by removing the interpretation that you added that does not verify. Dicklyon (talk) 00:56, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Another editor has begun to contribute to this discussion at the Full stop talk page. It may be best to take matters there for now. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:42, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I concur, since similar cleanup needs to happen there, and was proposed much sooner, but an editor uninvolved in any of our disputes. There's no point in merging broken material between two articles. They both need to be fixed first, requiring very substantial rewriting.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:31, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Preparing for Call Center Interviews--RS? Oxford Dictionaries--correct?

User @Dicklyon: just added Preparing for Call Center Interviews as a source (book, 2007, by Namrata Palta, Lotus Press, New Delhi). I'm not sure it's suitable. [27] It certainly is a published book, but I think it may have been playing it fast and loose considering that punctuation is outside its expressed purview. For example, I read a statistics textbook once that said "because humans have 48 chromosomes, the number of possible genetic combinations is (exponent)," which isn't true because it neglects the process of crossing over that takes place during meiosis. The source was RS, but it wasn't right about something outside its wheelhouse. The claim that American style was established for typographical reasons, for example, is usually copied off the old version of this page, which was not at that time properly sourced (old forum post).

The text that this source was added to support was "With regard to quotation marks adjacent to periods and commas, there are two styles of punctuation in widespread use. These two styles are most commonly referred to as "American" and "British" (the latter of which is also called "logical quotation"). Both systems have the same rules regarding question marks, exclamation points, colons, and semicolons. However, they differ on the treatment of periods and commas." We can probably find many more sources that establish this.

If there is no objection, I'll remove PCCI tomorrow. If there is any objection, we'll keep talking. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:00, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Dicklyon, the very page of PCCI that you linked to cites Oxford Dictionaries as a source. Clearly PCCI thinks that OD is okay. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:02, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The online Oxford page that you linked has an error in its example, which is why I think we should prefer other sources. It has this:

She still sounds amazed when she says: ‘We were turned down because “we represented too small a minority of the population”. They could still get away with saying things like that then.’

Note that the internal quote is either a complete sentence or the end of a sentence, but is not punctuated as such. If they really to say by this punctuation that it's not a complete sentence, they would have said so. Either way, it's either an error, misleading, or confusing. In some interpretations of British style, that period would not go inside if it's not a complete sentence, but it logical style it would, if it's the end of sentence, as some sources describe the difference. Anyway, it's a mess. Mixing up all the single/double stuff with the inside/outside stuff doesn't help. The PCCI book is much more clear. Dicklyon (talk) 19:21, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

That actually looks correct to me. At least, it's consistent with what the other sources say (both those that say "British" and those that say "logical"): That period belongs to the sentence as a whole, so it's placed outside the quotation marks (Chicago). The sense of the punctuation is not part of the quotation (JISS). We also don't know whether there was a period after "population" or a comma. The original quote might have been "we represented too small a minority of the population, and our needs were not representative," which makes it consistent with your interpretation of "logical" as well. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:54, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, looks right, meaning it seems likely that they intended to signal that the inner sentence did not end there. Seems odd to me that they would make something up, pretend it doesn't end where it seems to, and use that without comment in an example about single versus double quotation marks (section Direct speech within direct speech). And above that it says "In British English ... any associated punctuation is placed outside the closing quotation mark", which is NOT what we call logical punctuation, and is also not what they follow with any consistency in their examples. I think it would be impossible for a reader to learn either British or logical style (or whether they are the same or not) from the statements and examples on this Oxford page.

So why do you like it? Just that it associates the styles with the dialects? That also seems like an error; most sources talk about this as more regional and house style, not really connected to dialect. In all countries, logical style is more common in technical than in informal writing, which has little correlation with dialect.

Other Oxford works, such as New Hart's Rules, are much more careful in explaining the systems and their usage patterns, and do not tie these to dialects. Dicklyon (talk) 02:18, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Why do I like it? SmC has brought up "only the American sources do X" and Oxford D. is as British and as respectable as they come. But yes, the fact that it says straight-out "in British English," as you've brought up, also gives it some appeal for me. It seems obvious to me that these punctuation styles are part of British English and American English, respectively, but this is Wikipedia. My observations are no more or less important than anyone else's. It helps to have a source that actually says so.

Do you have a source that says OD is wrong on this, or enough sources that show its take here is a fluke? Or some other reason to doubt it, the way that PfCCI looks like it could have been a copy of the old Wikipedia page?

If it's the "in British English" that's bothering you, I'll point out that OD is not alone in including punctuation under "British English" and "American English": A University of Minnesota style guide says "periods and commas go inside quotation marks in American English but outside quotation marks in British English." Grammar and Style in British English says "Quotation marks (or inverted commas) may be used singly or doubly. Single marks are generally preferred in British English, while double marks are obligatory in American English." There are also sub- and questionably reliable sources that do this, such as blogs and self-made sites, like this one: The Punctuation Guide says "Mr., Mrs., and Ms. all take periods in American English. In British English, the periods are omitted."

...you know what might be relevant? You keep saying "this isn't dialect." Where did you get that idea? That's not rhetorical: Is there a linguistics textbook or something that says it's wrong to refer to punctuation as part of British English? Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:31, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

That Minnesota source is obviously complete crap. Too lame to bother with, since they don't even get British style approximately right: "(periods and commas go inside quotation marks in American English but outside quotation marks in British English)".

I don't have a source that argues that it's not dialect, but quite a few sources do talk about it as usage and convention in different regions and genres without connecting it to dialect. Britsh fiction and journalism use something like the American style. Some American scientific guides recommend logical or more like British style. How can these be dialect issues? They're pretty much orthogonal to things like colour/color or the singular/plural treatment of collective nouns. If they're dialect, they're not along the usual AmE/BrE axis. Dicklyon (talk) 07:00, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

"Complete crap"? Consider taking a break, Dicklyon. It's a style guide page that's meant to instruct on American English. Of course it pays more attention to that than to British. The line that it is meant to support is "they differ in the treatment of periods and commas," and it says that directly. I'll add a quote to make this clear.

So Oxford Dictionaries and University of Minnesota call it "British English," and no one says "don't call it British English." I think we have our answer. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:30, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, too strong. By "complete crap" on this ref I meant that it is bullshit to point to that as supporting anything about the question at hand. The only thing is says about British quotation make placement is wrong. At least it finishes with a good idea: "Note: Each citation style, like MLA or APA, has its own rules for using other punctuation with quotation marks. Check a style guide to see how to punctuate quotes properly in your discipline." Dicklyon (talk) 16:44, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

As to your other illogic, what is it that's being called "British English"? I think we're all OK with that as a dialect in contrast with American English. And there are sources that call our style "logical"; and none that say don't call it that. So that's settled. Dicklyon (talk) 16:47, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Your last sentence or two has gotten a little incoherent there. The thing that is being called part of British English is the British punctuation practice described in this article. Per Chicago 16, this one system usually involves placement by grammatical sense or grammatical logic but has exceptions that involve original position; it uses the term "British" for the whole thing. JISS refers to placement by grammatical sense as "logical quotation." OUP refers to placement by sense as just "British." It's safe to say that the sources use the terms interchangeably. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:22, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I've never said "only American sources do X" about anything under discussion here; please stop projecting straw man fantasies. This weird example from Oxford illustrates and proves that "Brtish quotation" is not a single style. But actually reading British style guides instead of going along with cherry picked American style guides in making incorrect assumptions about them, already made that clear for everyone here, except apparently one editor. The majority of both British and American publications would have had:She still sounds amazed when she says: 'We were turned down because "we represented too small a minority of the population." They could still get away with saying things like that then.' In theory anyway. The internal quote doesn't actually track; it's purporting to be the expression of whoever did the turning down, but it includes the we of those who were turned down. So it would probably be She still sounds amazed when she says: 'We were turned down because we "represented too small a minority of the population". ...'. At that point it would be a sentence fragment (albeit an almost complete one) so many British sources would then have the punctuation as "...population".. But not all of them. Logical quotation would permit either placement, simply not falsification of period as a comma or semicolone inside the quote, if the structure were changed to something like She says, 'We were turned down because we "represented too small a minority of the population", and still sounds amazed. 'They could still ....' A large number of British publishers would have ...population," here just like American journalism would, and this is proof that BQ is not LQ. Of course we went over this 20 times before in every other forum, so I'm don't expect the one editor who doesn't get it to suddenly get it this time in this venue. The Guardian already told us publicly that this article is making an error on this very matter in this article several years ago, yet largely because of the FUD-injecting behavior of a single editor it's not been corrected.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:40, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

It's the Chicago Manual of Style, which you've sometimes cited yourself. I didn't cherry pick it. And Oxford Dictionaries is British. But if you don't like it, here's Oxford University Press via the British Scientific Style and Format: "In the British style (OUP 1983), all signs of punctuation used with words and quotation marks must be placed according to the sense."[28]

I do not agree with you that interior comma placement such as you describe is proof that "British" and "logical" are not two terms for the same thing. In the sources that I've seen so far, the terms are used interchangeably. What I would find convincing would be if we had either sources that said so explicitly or if we could line up all the sources that say "logical" and all the sources that say "British" and find that they say different things, enough to show that the ones that do otherwise are flukes/outliers/not statistically significant. I know I've said this to you before, but consider it a standing offer. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:16, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not our job to kowtow to a lone participant's WP:FILIBUSTERing, OR and "belief". Other editors are not obligated to take your "offers" and "what [you] would find convincing" seriously.

The CMoS is (I think we all agree) a largely reliable source when it comes to what it (among many other such works) helps define, namely the general practices of common-denominator, non-journalism, and otherwise non-specialized American publication style. It does not define, and is not a reliable source for, anything it simply glosses over or has a clear bias against, such as logical quotation, "British" (Commonwealth) styles, their definitions, and how they differ. On these matters it is vague, and vacillates between deferential and antagonistic. It defers, for three editions in a row, to The New Hacker's Dictionary, an LQ source, for "computer writing", and defers to Oxford, et al., for British styles, and to linguistics sources on linguistic use of LQ, etc., but tries in vain to convince philosophy publishers to abandon their context-specific use of LQ in their own field (which they've been using since at least the 19th c.), a matter on which CMoS is clearly a primary source of activism, not a secondary authority.

The clear problem here is in assuming that a sometimes-secondary source that is reliable for some things within its purview, is always a reliable secondary source for everything for which someone might want it to be. WP:RS doesn't work that way. It's exactly the same thing as trying to cite a zoology source that glosses over some distinctions between two species of similar plants, and conflates them in passing, as somehow more reliable on the matter than the botanical sources that define and distinguish those plants in detail as different species. It's long past time to stop persisting in this farce. It doesn't matter how much you love CMoS; there is no One World Holy Authority on English. If there were, it sure as hell wouldn't be CMoS, which is riddled with errors. Not just of interpretation but of demonstrable fact, ranging from citing sources that do not even address what CMoS cites them for, to CMoS directly contradicting itself from example to example, both in the same section. I could go on, but every second spent arguing with you feels like a waste of time.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:26, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

SmC, you've seen that the content I've added is backed up by sources. Claims of WP:OR are inappropriate. You don't have to change your mind and agree with me, but you do have to stop claiming OR. Or, on the off-chance that I've misunderstood you somehow, what exactly do you think I've synthesized? I'm not being rhetorical. I want to understand your side of this.

I keep referring to "what I personally would find convincing" because you seem very upset that I personally do not agree with you. I'm trying to explain why I haven't changed my mind. You say that arguing with me is a waste of time. That's because, from my perspective, you keep repeating your take on the matter over and over but haven't backed it up with sources. Result: I respect your right to your own opinion but I'm not convinced that it is more than your own opinion.

Common-denominator, non-specialist, non-journalism writing is exactly what we do on Wikipedia.

I agree that sources can be reliable for some things and not others. That's where my skepticism of PCCI is coming from. However, I'm confident that CMoS has it right on this matter. This is because I have seen sources that agree with it and a few sources that don't take a position but none that disagree with it. If you know of what you consider to be a more specific source, that would be relevant. I wasn't kidding any of the times I said I'd support changing the article if the right sources for it turned up.[29] [30] "While the Chicago Manual of Style and X and Y say that 'logical' and 'British' styles are the same thing, Dr. So-and-so, writing in such-and-such says they are not" or "the sources are split on whether this is one system with two names and a few exceptions or two separate systems. General style guides like CMoS and OUP say X but these two others say Y." So long as it's neutral and proportionate and sourced, why not?

It's a bit of a mystery to me why you keep saying "Other sources say this" but haven't mentioned them by name in this discussion or used them in the article space yet. You don't have to if you don't want to, and you don't have to share your reasons, but that's where my head is on this. I hope we understand each other better now.

I'll flip this around: What sort of thing do you find convincing? Darkfrog24 (talk) 09:32, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

To belatedly answer, I find convincing here one thing only: WP:CORE. In long form: Use of all of the available, applicable, reliable sources, being used neutrally – and without novel synthesis, pre-conceived evaluation, or personal and idiosyncratic reinterpretation – factoring in the sum total of their applicable material not just convenient parts; to verify the claims for which they are high-quality, secondary sources of [[[WP:TRUTH|probable]]] facts, without undue weight when they are tertiary or weaker secondary sources for certain ideas, and not at all (unless with direct attribution, if the consensus view is that inclusion seems necessary) when they are primary sources for potentially controversial claims, or probably erroneous because the preponderance of other reliable sources contradicts them, or obsolete. How to write Wikipedia in a nutshell (albeit a run-on one).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:48, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Thread about now-topicbanned user does not directly relate to improvement of this article.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Too much darkness? Why is the vast majority of the talk from DarkFrog24? If that were turned down, wouldn't we have a relatively sensible situation here? Do we need all this noise? Dicklyon (talk) 07:27, 17 January 2016 (UTC) Talk:Quotation marks in English en.wikipedia.org Total revisions: 485 Number of editors: 167 2016-01-17 07:21:21 1 Number of edits 2 Average time between edits Username #1 Minor edits % First edit Latest edit atbe2 Added (Bytes) Darkfrog24 97 10 10.3 2010-02-01, 15:58 2016-01-17, 03:33 22.4 48,863 Abtract 20 7 35 2006-09-26, 12:27 2007-10-02, 22:38 18.6 5,937 SMcCandlish 18 5 27.8 2011-10-28, 00:05 2015-09-05, 08:42 78.2 16,692 Davilla~enwiki 18 4 22.2 2005-07-22, 18:37 2006-02-12, 23:45 11.4 3,501 SlimVirgin 17 0 0 2010-02-15, 02:10 2010-02-18, 06:13 0.2 6,943 IanMSpencer 12 3 25 2005-09-21, 12:49 2007-09-20, 17:00 60.8 6,087 SineBot 11 11 100 2008-03-12, 02:41 2012-11-06, 14:55 154.6 3,236 Mzajac 9 2 22.2 2005-10-10, 18:31 2007-09-18, 07:45 78.6 2,988 Omegatron 9 0 0 2004-05-05, 23:17 2007-01-15, 15:32 109.4 1,516 Elektron 8 2 25 2004-06-14, 07:03 2007-09-22, 13:02 149.4 4,016 Turkeyphant 7 1 14.3 2014-10-17, 02:59 2014-10-23, 17:59 0.9 3,832 Menchi 6 5 83.3 2003-06-26, 08:29 2004-05-06, 05:08 52.5 554 Tokek 5 1 20 2005-06-24, 23:38 2005-07-30, 21:05 7.2 1,156 Dicklyon 5 0 0 2016-01-16, 19:22 2016-01-17, 07:18 0.1 3,590 BarrelProof 5 0 0 2013-05-12, 21:42 2015-09-06, 19:41 169.4 1,606 Mark R Johnson 5 0 0 2010-03-22, 16:17 2010-07-16, 22:17 23.2 2,605 Kleinzach 5 0 0 2010-01-07, 00:40 2010-02-15, 06:26 7.8 540 Come on, don't make this personal. Don't look at how many Wikipedians believe that something is sensible. Look at how many sources support it. (WP:V) If I'm doing the work of many editors, good. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:28, 17 January 2016 (UTC) When you completely dominate the sum of all other voices in talk pages, it's personal. Dicklyon (talk) 16:38, 17 January 2016 (UTC) If the thing I'm doing to "dominate" is offering sources and asking other people to do the same, then no it's not. That's how Wikipedia works. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:24, 17 January 2016 (UTC) You aren't doing the work of many editors, though it's interesting to observe your lack of WP:5THWHEEL humility in that regard. You're single-mindedly pursuing a single OR-based PoV, the false insistence that logical quotation is some kind of British imposition and is "wrong" to ever use in American English. You've been pushing this angle for almost 7 years, at WP:MOS and its related pages, here in mainspace, even at Wiktionary. You know it's false (have had it demonstrated to you, whether you accept it or not – I'm not projecting anything about your mental state). Everyone else knows it's false. The sources prove it's false, but your WP:OWNish patterns basically don't let anyone else get in a word edgewise, at least not for long because of the "slow-editwar" pattern you also employ – you just wait a bit until maybe no one is looking and just change it all to say what you want it to say again. This cannot continue indefinitely. I've been leaving this alone for several months out of the good-faith expectation that you'll snap out of these patterns, but I don't see any evidence this is going to happen; if anything, it's just been getting worse. You're not "offering more sources", you're deleting ones you don't like, inserting questionable ones like ranty blogs, and mis-citing reliable ones on one point to support things they don't actually support other points.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:59, 17 January 2016 (UTC) I considered saying this to Dicklyon earlier today, but the truth is I don't have enough reason to think it applies to him. SMcCandlish, you have your own ideas and beliefs and pet peeves about English and you don't like that someone—me in this case—is telling you "you need a source for that" and "this source doesn't actually say that." (Please note that I wasn't kidding all the times when I said "if you find a source, great.") And I didn't consider saying this to Dicklyon: Your position is not reasonable. Chicago, Oxford, other style guides, university websites, magazine articles, and journals from both sides of the Atlantic and sometimes the Pacific refer to these practices as "British" and "American." You do not get to cite OR or NPOV when I agree with them. As for demonstrating that those sources are wrong, when do you think you did that? Not rhetorical. Your thought process is different from mine, so I'm going to AGF and suppose that maybe you think you showed me proof, but whatever it was, it didn't look like proof, to the point where I didn't know that's what you thought you were doing and don't know when you think you did it. For example, I think that all the websites and style guides that say "American style" and "in American English" are very convincing, but you clearly don't feel that way. And "not getting a word in edgewise"? Pot, kettle. You're the longest-winded person here. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:44, 17 January 2016 (UTC) The sources don't support your claim that SMcC is the longest-winded. One of your many edits of the last few days is longer than his only edit, and several more are competitive for longness. Your 1-day total of around 7 KB is way bigger than his only recent comment here. Dicklyon (talk) 01:53, 18 January 2016 (UTC) By "longest-winded one here," I mean on Wikipedia. In general, SmC goes on more than I do. You know this perfectly well. If nothing else, you've seen his comment on that thread RG started about us. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:09, 18 January 2016 (UTC) Yes he does make a few very long posts. You, on the other hand, are incessantly long winded on topics like this one. Dicklyon (talk) 17:20, 18 January 2016 (UTC) Another major difference is that I what I post is actually point-by-point responsive (which often accounts for the length), not hand-waving and circular reasoning, but whatever. This will all be sorted out soon enough with proper, not cherry-picked, sourcing, in prodigious volume, as soon as I get a long enough work-break. It'll include the dozens of sources that a certain now-topic-banned editor kept pretending had not been presented for them to ignore, and many more. I have almost every major style guide on hand, either in paper form or e-pub, and the rest will arrive within a few weeks, depending on Media Mail delays.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:13, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Speaking of long-windedness...

Moved to Full stop § Fowler and Fowler advocated American style?

Since we're getting a little traffic on this talk page, what do you two think of this?[31] I'd have implemented it a week or so after proposing it, but by then MOS:SUPPORTS had gotten active. Now that that's died down, what do you think? Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:03, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Commented there. Dicklyon (talk) 04:19, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

About "Typesetters' Quotation"

I have something to ask about "Typesetters' Punctuation/Quotation.": Exactly how were those particular pieces of type possibly going to break or be damaged so easily, and what were those pieces of type even made of? Also, I am pretty sure that this article may or may not explain the origin of "Typesetters' Punctuation/Quotation.". Does it? Jim856796 (talk) 04:31, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Ending the sentence

I did not get from the examples and text, whether this is allowed/preferred in British quotation - the period outside the quotation:

She said, "Hello, world".

Do the closing single quotation mark and the apostrophe ever differ in form?

According to the lead section, "The closing single quotation mark is identical or similar in form to the apostrophe…". No example is given, however, of a font with different glyphs for the two, nor have I ever encountered such a font. Unless someone objects, I shall delete the words "or similar".

Peter Brown (talk) 00:46, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

That would muddle meaning and display. One could easily design a new font in which the glyphs for a closing single quotation mark and apostrophe are different. Bazza (talk) 11:20, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Would it be "easy" to arrange that your new font be accessible to word-processing programs? That it becomes permissible in the {{Font}} template? Right now, the code point for the right single quotation mark is U+2019; for your new curved apostrophe, wouldn't you have to request a new code point from the Unicode Consortium? Once these matters are taken care of, I would have no basis to complain about "or similar". Until then, however, I think that my complaint stands. To be sure, it relies on the current status of word processors, Wikipedia, and Unicode, but I see nothing objectionable in such reliance. Peter Brown (talk) 16:12, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

I may not have explained myself properly. An example of an apostrophe (U+0027) with a different shape to a single closing quotation mark (U+2019) can seen at [32], taken from [33]. Bazza (talk) 16:28, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Is the closing single quotation mark identical to the apostrophe – i.e. is it the same thing – or is it a different entity with either the same form or a similar one? Following The Chicago Manual of Style, I opt for the former. Since it must have the same form as itself, it is not merely similar. Sometimes it functions in one capacity, sometimes in another. Peter Brown (talk) 01:35, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

You are still confusing presentation and content. The apostrophe, represented in Unicode by a value of U+0027, is not the same as a closing single quotation mark, represented by the value U+2019. The appearance of the two may be identical or, as in the example I referenced above, different. The ' character on your keyboard is an apostrophe. Technological limitations have meant that for convenience it's often used, including on Wikipedia, as both an opening and closing single quotation mark; an error as quotes do not start and end with an apostrophe. (A similar issue arises, less frequently, with the ` grave accent U+0060, sometimes used as an opening single quotation mark.) Having said all that, the differences between an apostrophe and a single closing quotation mark is, at a practical level, fuzzy to say the least. Some software, such as MS Word, is able to detect this and use instead the values for opening and closing single quotation marks (U+2018 and U+2019 respectively), although moves the problem in the other direction by also replacing apostrophes with the former; other software, including Wikipedia, does not, keeping instead U+0027 for both quotations and apostrophes. Your change to the article (a bit premature and disrespectful considering this discussion is still taking place) has overlooked the image I referenced for you earlier, and fails by using an absolute term such as "identicial" to take into account the impreciseness of the subject at hand; I have undone it and reworded the original. (The treatment of the same issues by the apostrophe article is less prescriptive and, in my view, clearer.) Bazza (talk) 11:02, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

I apologize for the disrespect. After starting this discussion, I found a clear statement in The Chicago Manual of Style which I cited in my edit to the article, which you have reverted. It reads, "The apostrophe is the same character as the right single quotation mark (defined for Unicode as U+2019…)." I thought this settled the matter. In turn, I complain that you should not be replacing Wikipedia text that contains a bona fide reference with contrary text that does not.

You claim that using U+0027 as a quotation mark is an error, even though is prescribed by the Wikipedia MOS and used consistently by sources such as Al Jazeera English. At least in Wikipedia's case, this is not a matter of convenience, since ‘ and ’ are readily available. You also complain about the fact that MS Word uses U+2019 for the apostrophe (as does The New York Times – see the current front page which refers to "The Watergate class of ’74" using U+2019). Also check out The Manchester Guardian. If a usage is widespread among reputable publications, it's doubtful that it can be called an error.

Your source is self-contradictory. It says, "A Unicode font might have several different characters for a symbol that looks like a single quote mark, but only one of them is a true single quote" and then goes on to identify both U+2018 and U+2019 as true single quotes. Peter Brown (talk) 17:41, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

It seems we're probably talking cross-purposes here. Approaching this from a data-representation viewpoint (as I would with a career history which includes that), I cannot agree with the statement that apostrophes are identical to closing single quotation marks: the Unicode encoding definitions are to the contrary,with APOSTROPHE U+0027, LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK U+2018 and RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK U+2019 the relevant codepoints. The last two of those are the the opening and closing instances of the "true single quote" marks in my reference (which you have stated is self-contradictory). The Unicode definition for APOSTROPHE U+0027 states that it is a neutral glyph with mixed usage, and that U+2019 is preferred for apostrophe. The last comment fits with the adoption of U+2019 by various publishers, style guides and software as a result of the glyph for APOSTROPHE usually being represented neutrally as '. Wikipedia itself seems to get slightly confused by instructing us to use "straight" quotation marks, not “curly” ones. (For single apostrophe quotes: 'straight', not ‘curly’). In view of this convoluted and ambiguous picture painted by various sources, I would suggest that the current wording you originally had an issue with is replaced with something similar to the final paragraph in apostrophe's lede. For starters, perhaps "The closing single quotation mark looks identical or similar to an apostrophe in many fonts; although they have different meanings Unicode recommends using the quotation mark character to represent most uses of the apostrophe. Many publishers and style guides follow this recommendation **references to NY times and TCMoS**, and it is implemented in popular word-processing software such as Microsoft Word and **Apple equivalent**. The closing single quotation mark may also look similar to, but is not the same as, the prime symbol ( ' ), and the ´ (acute) character. Similarly, the opening single quotation mark may be confused with the ʻokina ( ʻ )."; any further development of this would be helpful. Note, please, that what you attribute to me as complaints were not written by me as such; rather, observations. Bazza (talk) 18:56, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Let us get straight that we're not discussing the prime symbol U+2032, the ʻokina U+02BB, or the acute accent U+00B4. These are outside the scope of our discussion.

As regards Unicode's definitions, Talk:Unicode#Number of issues lists nearly one hundred cases in which they are in error. I'm not going to be persuaded by these definitions.

You say that U+2018 and U+2019 are different instances of the "true single quote" (henceforth TSQ). Your source, however, refers only to characters, not instances. It clearly implies that the TSQ is a character but declines to say which character it is. Are you suggesting that one character, like U+2019, can, in some sense, be an "instance" of another, like the TSQ? Might the TSQ be an instance of yet another character?

Your source also refers refers to the way a character looks, which is an error; glyphs may appear one way or another, but the corresponding characters are abstract entities without a determinate appearance.

You say that the glyph for APOSTROPHE is "usually" represented as '. Citation needed (exclusive of Unicode).

I find the Wikipedia MOS quite clear, not "convoluted and ambiguous". What is the problem?

Your italicized proposal refers to the meaning of a character. I don't think that, out of context, a character has a unique meaning any more than a word does. ("Does", in some contexts, is the plural of "doe" rather than a third‑person verb.) The function of U+2019 – loosely, its meaning – depends on whether or not the context pairs it with U+2018.

It seems to me that calling something an error is a way of complaining about it. Perhaps we interpret "complain" diffently. Whatever.

Peter Brown (talk) 21:41, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

My original concern was only that you had decided unilaterally that closing single quotation marks are always, without exception, identical to apostrophes. You seem consider any view contrary to that, even when made in good faith, unacceptable. In the face of that, I have nothing further to contribute. Bazza (talk) 22:02, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Ditto mark

The article says:

"The typographic closing double quotation mark and the neutral double quotation mark are similar to—and sometimes stand in for—the ditto mark and the double prime symbol." (emphasis added)

If I understand correctly, that is somewhat incorrect. These are not just similar to the ditto mark; they are the ditto mark (in English). There is no separate character code provided for ditto marks in English. Is that correct? —BarrelProof (talk) 22:58, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Use of square brackets within quotation marks

@Bazza 7: You reverted my contribution to this article with the edit summary, that's interesting, but dealt with in the square bracket article and off-topic here (this is an article about quotation marks in English, not quotations).

But the quotations article appears to be about the linguistic phenomena of quoting; the word "typographic" appears only once in that article, but twenty-two times in this article. And this article is hardly strictly confined to the topic of quotation marks themselves but includes all manner of related information, like what key combinations to press to insert them in different operating systems, and the fact that they need to be accompanied by backslashes / escaped when nested in some programming languages.

The whole reason I ended up tracking down this information is because I came to this specific article looking for it, first, and couldn't find it, then ended up elbow-deep in the AP Stylebook before its instruction to never use square brackets (in news articles, apparently because of some twentieth-century technological problem, which I wouldn't be surprised to find is derived from telegraph encoding standard issues or something like that originally) sent me back to Wikipedia to look at the brackets article.

I hardly reproduced any of the seven-paragraph associated subsection of the brackets article; so tl;dr can we at least include a single sentence, so that someone who comes to this article looking for the same information I did—how to denote a parenthesis (rhetoric) inside quotation marks in the most orthodox fashion—can find their way there? --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 13:21, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

@Struthious Bandersnatch: Hello, I thought your addition was too much an aside from the main subject, which is the form and usage of quotation marks in the English language. I did wonder about how to include a single sentence which might point to a more pertinent article about how deviations from a quotation might be portrayed, but failed. I would consider such an addition by you as useful and helpful, if you have one and can find the article to point to (such as Bracket#Citations?). Bazza (talk) 13:43, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

@Bazza 7: How about the first sentence from my previous contribution?

A late-twentieth-century and twenty-first century convention is the use of square brackets to mark off words or characters between the quotation marks that were not present in the original material such as paraphrasing, changes in capitalization, non-vocable sounds in a transcription of an audio recording, etc.

It seems like the same sort of information as the currently-included sentence, Other languages use an escape character, often the backslash, as in 'eat \'hot\' dogs' except that it's about punctuation used in coordination with quotation marks in English-language prose, rather than in programming languages derived from English and other human languages. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 16:27, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Struthious Bandersnatch: Hello, that looks along the right track, but as it's dealt with in more detail at the target article, it could be shortened to be more general:

A convention is the use of square brackets to indicate content between the quotation marks that has been modified from, or was not present in, the original material.

I've omitted the era when this started as a reference is needed; reinstate if you have one. Same applies if you're attached to your original suggestion. Bazza (talk) 17:05, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Bazza 7: Looks good to me. I've put it in the same place I had originally, under §Order of punctuation, but feel free to move it if there's a better place. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 19:36, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

This article isn't in British English so we should remove the "use British English" template

In British English these aren't even called quotation marks at all, they're called inverted commas or speech marks. I am going to remove the template, because it's easier than renaming the article and rewriting the article to use the different terms. Mvolz (talk) 10:58, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I speak British English (only) and disagree. So do Oxford Dictionaries [34]. Bazza (talk) 13:15, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

In school at least in the South of England my children are being taught they're called speech marks or inverted commas. (Example where the BBC says this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zvwwxnb/articles/ztcp97h). Regional difference maybe?

Plus- Oxford English Dictionary also doesn't /really/ agree. See: https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/156901 entry for Quotation where it is included - they define quotation mark as "In English, an inverted comma". Inverted comma gets its own definition here http://oed.com/view/Entry/74223983 where it adds, "Chiefly used outside North America, where quote mark(s) or quotes are more usual." Mvolz (talk) 13:37, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Also, re "quote mark", OER defines that as... "a closing angle bracket used to introduce quoted text." So, entirely different from the American English definition (where it is synonymous with quotation mark.) https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/156907 Mvolz (talk) 13:43, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You attributed "quotation mark" to American English. I provided a reference to state otherwise, so the attribution is wrong. (I'm not sure what you mean by Oxford Dictionaries not "really" agreeing: I gave a reference to Lexico ("powered by OD")'s British English definition. Collins agrees.) I don't doubt they have lots of other names as well, including primary school-level "speech marks". I think it's probably best to omit a variant's location unless you can provide references which state it is exclusively used there. Bazza (talk) 13:52, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

It's powered by Oxford English Dictionary, but I linked to the actual entry in Oxford English Dictionary, which does define it, but only in terms of another term- which it actually defines. This is what I meant by "not really."

But rather more importantly, according to Lexico - powered by OED- which you just cited above- "In British English, quotation marks are called inverted commas, and the single ones are used more frequently than the double for direct speech." Which I think rather settles the matter. https://www.lexico.com/grammar/inverted-commas-quotation-marks Mvolz (talk) 08:20, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

You are being remarkably selective in your evidence. The same page you give as a reference above also states "They are also known as quotation marks, speech marks, or quotes." without attribution to any particular English variant. We have both come up with various references which suggest the marks have several names in both British, American, and other English variants' usage. Some of those references are at odds with others, or seem to contradict others from the same publisher. To specifically assign a particular name to an English variant (as you boldly did before we started this discussion) would need much more unambiguous information; so, I think, settles the matter about leaving the wording as it currently stands: In English writing, quotation marks or inverted commas, also known informally as quotes, talking marks, speech marks, quote marks, quotemarks or speechmarks,... Bazza (talk) 10:31, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

(addition) As regards the template referred to in this discussion's heading, I have restored it as the page is predominantly written in British English; not because the article is concerned with a subject connected solely to that version of English, but it seems to have been the variant used when the article was first developed (WP:ARTCON, WP:RETAIN). Bazza (talk) 10:37, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

(correction) Some detective work suggests this edit first introduced a word ("behavior") which belongs to a specific English variant (American); that varient should therefore be the one used throughout the article (WP:RETAIN, WP:ARTCON). I have changed the template, and corrected any non-American spellings. Bazza (talk) 11:03, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Crazy footnote

We have a list masquerading as reference citation, which is huge and reads:

Other style guides and reference volumes include the following: U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual (2008, p. 217), US Department of Education's IES Style Guide (2005, p. 43), The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing (1997, p. 148), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, International Reading Association Style Guide, American Dialect Society, Association of Legal Writing Directors' ALWD Citation Manual, The McGraw-Hill Desk Reference by K. D. Sullivan (2006, p. 52), Webster's New World Punctuation by Geraldine Woods (2005, p. 68), The New Oxford Guide to Writing by Thomas S. Kane (1994, pp. 278, 305, 306), Merriam-Webster's Manual for Writers and Editors by Merriam-Webster (1998, p. 27), Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers by Lynn Troyka, et al. (1993, p. 517), Science and Technical Writing by Philip Rubens (2001, p. 208), Health Professionals Style Manual by Shirley Fondiller and Barbara Nerone (2006, p. 72), The Gregg Reference Manual by William A. Sabin (2000, p. 247), The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation by Jane Straus(2007, p. 61), The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage by Allan M. Siegal, The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge (2004, p. 788), The Copyeditor's Handbook by Amy Einsohn (2000, p. 111), The Grammar Bible by Michael Strumpf, Auriel Douglas (2004, p. 446), Elements of Style by William Strunk and Elwyn B. White (1979, p. 36), Little English Handbook by Edward P. J. Corbett (1997, p. 135), Commonsense Grammar and Style by Phillip S. Sparks (2004, p. 18), Handbook of Technical Writing by Gerald Alred et al. (2006, pp. 83, 373), MIT Guide To Science and Engineering Communication by J. Paradis and M. L. Zimmerman (2002, p. 314), Guide to Writing Empirical Papers by G. David Garson (2002, p. 178), Modern English by A. L. Lazarus, A. MacLeish, and H. W. Smith (1971, p. 71), The Scott Foresman Handbook for Writers (8th ed.) by John Ruszkiewicz et al., Comma Sense by Richard Lederer, John Shore (2007, p. 138), Write right! by Jan Venolia (2001, p. 82), Scholastic Journalism by Earl English and Clarence Hach (1962. p. 75), Grammar in Plain English by Harriet Diamond and Phyllis Dutwin (2005, p. 199), Crimes Against the English Language by Jill Meryl Levy (2005, p. 21), The Analytical Writer by Adrienne Robins (1997, p. 524), Writing with a Purpose by James McNab McCrimmon (1973, p. 415), Writing and Reporting News by Carole Rich (2000, p. 60), The Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well by Tom Goldstein (2003, p. 163), Woodroof's Quotations, Commas And Other Things English by D. K. Woodroof (2005, pp. 10–12), Journalism Language and Expression by Sundara Rajan (2005, p. 76), The Business Writer's Handbook by Gerald Alred et al. (2006, p. 451), The Business Style Handbook by Helen Cunningham (2002, p. 213), Essentials of English by Vincent Hopper (2000, p. 127).

This material needs to be merged into List of style guides. It is neither a reference citation nor an appropriate non-citation footnote in this article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:56, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Confused by examples for "Titles of artistic works" guidelines

The usage examples section Quotation_marks_in_English#Titles_of_artistic_works states "Whether these are single or double depends on the context; however, many styles, especially for poetry, prefer the use of single quotation marks." but every example presents the use of double quotes only, leaving an unhanded exception in my understanding single quote usage.

It would be useful to provide some examples from the "many styles" or, as a last resort, dare I suggest, we request some contributions from a poet?

Also, did I miss a page level/implied reference for all this content? James Bateaux (talk) 01:13, 27 March 2024 (UTC)