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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.
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:
Quotation mark, Guillemet, Prime, Grave: Quotation marks in English, Possessive * Asterisk: Asterism, Dagger: Footnote ⁂ Asterism: Dinkus, Therefore sign @ At sign \ Backslash: Slash, Solidus (/) ` Backtick (non-Unicode name) ('Backtick' is an alias for the grave accent symbol) ‱ Basis point (per ten thousand) Per cent, per mille (per 1,000 ...
Quotation marks ( ‘ ’ , “ ” , ' ' , " " ) are used in pairs to set off quotation, with two levels for distinguishing nested quotations: single and double. North American publishers of English texts tend to favour double quotation marks for the primary quotation, switching to single for any quote-within-a-quote, while British and ...
The ditto mark is a shorthand sign, used mostly in hand-written text, indicating that the words or figures above it are to be repeated. [1] [2]The mark is made using "a pair of apostrophes"; [1] "a pair of marks " used underneath a word"; [3] the symbol " (quotation mark); [2] [4] or the symbol ” (right double quotation mark).
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.
For example, a quotation in English can be introduced by "She said". In some languages, there is a discourse marker in addition to the verb of saying that functions as verbal quotation marks. [22] For example, Japanese uses the quotative particle (a type of quotative marker) to along with the conjugated verb of saying itta:
Writers use scare quotes for a variety of reasons. They can imply doubt or ambiguity in words or ideas within the marks, [18] or even outright contempt. [19] They can indicate that a writer is purposely misusing a word or phrase [20] or that the writer is unpersuaded by the text in quotes, [21] and they can help the writer deny responsibility for the quote. [19]