Our language needs quotation marks. Without them, we couldn't know who said what to whom or even what they meant. Unfortunately, using them can prove tricky. Quotations marks appear in both double and ...

Picture this: A music reviewer makes a reference to the song “Space Truckin’” by Deep Purple. You want to quote him on it. Specifically, you want to quote a sentence in which the writer just happened ...

Andrew Heisel’s Lexicon Valley article last year on single versus double quotation marks piqued the interest of Keith Houston, author of Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and ...

If you are an American, using quotation marks could hardly be simpler: Use double quotation marks at all times unless quoting something within a quotation, when you use single. It’s different in the ...

Use double quotation marks (" ") to enclose phrases or entire sentences that were taken word for word from someone else. Quotation marks are not needed for paraphrasing. Example: The dog he brings on ...

I’ve gotten a lot of emails recently about where to put periods and commas relative to quotation marks. The notes were prompted by a recent column in which I mentioned that, in American English, a ...

Most often, quotation marks are used to show someone's exact words. Sometimes, they also signal sarcasm or irony. In most cases, there is nothing especially unusual about this little punctuation mark.

The trouble with being a former typesetter is that every day online is a new adventure in torture. Take the shape of quotation marks. These humble symbols are a dagger in my eye when a straight, or ...