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In English writing, quotation marks or inverted commas, also known informally as quotes, talking marks, [1] [2] speech marks, [3] quote marks, quotemarks or speechmarks, are punctuation marks placed on either side of a word or phrase in order to identify it as a quotation, direct speech or a literal title or name.
In 19th-century texts, British English and American English both frequently used the terms period and full stop. [ 8 ] [ 1 ] The word period was used as a name for what printers often called the "full point", the punctuation mark that was a dot on the baseline and used in several situations.
The use of English quotation marks is increasing in French and usually follows English rules, for instance in situations when the keyboard or the software context doesn't allow the use of guillemets. The French news site L'Humanité uses straight quotation marks along with angle ones. English quotes are also used sometimes for nested quotations:
In British English, punctuation marks such as full stops and commas are placed inside the quotation mark only if they are part of what is being quoted, and placed outside the closing quotation mark if part of the containing sentence. In American English, however, such punctuation is generally placed inside the closing quotation mark regardless.
Punctuation in the English language helps the reader to understand a sentence through visual means other than just the letters of the alphabet. [1] English punctuation has two complementary aspects: phonological punctuation, linked to how the sentence can be read aloud, particularly to pausing; [2] and grammatical punctuation, linked to the structure of the sentence. [3]
When text is omitted following a sentence, a period (full stop) terminates the sentence, and a subsequent ellipsis indicates one or more omitted sentences before continuing a longer quotation. Business Insider magazine suggests this style [8] and it is also used in many academic journals. The Associated Press Stylebook favors this approach. [9]
The adverb sic, meaning 'intentionally so written', first appeared in English c. 1856. [4] It is derived from the Latin adverb sīc , which means 'so', 'thus', 'in this manner'. [ 5 ] According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the verbal form of sic , meaning 'to mark with a sic' , emerged in 1889, E. Belfort Bax 's work in The Ethics of ...
A quotation or quote is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. [1] In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance (i.e. of something that a speaker actually said) that is introduced by a quotative marker, such as a verb of saying.