# Question about indie writers' use of single quotation marks



## 39416 (Mar 18, 2011)

In looking over sample chapters of indie writers on Amazon.com, I noticed several books use single quotation marks to indicate someone talking, and only use double quotation marks when someone talking quotes someone. Is this something new? Is it foreign? I'm just curious. Anyone know? Thanks.


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## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

loraininflorida said:


> In looking over sample chapters of indie writers on Amazon.com, I noticed several books use single quotation marks to indicate someone talking, and only use double quotation marks when someone talking quotes someone. Is this something new? Is it foreign? I'm just curious. Anyone know? Thanks.


Standard British punctuation.


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## 39416 (Mar 18, 2011)

Thank you!


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## jason10mm (Apr 7, 2009)

Yeah, it is frustruating at first, but I quickly look past it. I see that the kindle LOTR uses that type of punctuation, but I don't remember it in copies I read as a kid. Is it something usually corrected for american releases and they just stopped bothering for e-books?


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## Lynn McNamee (Jan 8, 2009)

As an editor, I've learned the many different punctuation "quirks" of non-U.S. writers.

One of the first questions I have for a new non-U.S. client is, "Do you want your book Americanized?" ("Americanized" is just a term I made up and includes changing punctuation and/or language to better fit what Americans expect to find in a book.)

I get different responses each time.


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## India Drummond (Nov 1, 2010)

I use British spellings and terms in Blood Faerie, since it's essentially a British book, but having been born in the US, I just can't do the single-quotes thing.   It's just about the only adjustment I haven't made to my new homeland!


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## Ilyria Moon (May 14, 2011)

nomesque said:


> Standard British punctuation.


Not in my England, it isn't.

This is how we were taught to write in England. Perhaps we were the only school in the country to do so? 

"What do you mean, the English use single quotation marks?" Emma said. "I remember quite clearly from my schooldays, Ms Murray always said, 'Use double quotation marks when signifying someone is speaking'. Is it clear?"

"Is that what she said?"

"Yes. And I got an A+ in English at GCSE and A Level, and no one ever picked up on it and corrected me. Nor do any of the books I read by English authors ever use single marks. In fact, this is an American convention, by my observation."

Maybe we learned American conventions at our top of the league tables school - I don't know why - but the exam board never challenged it, and their examples had double quotation marks. Just looking through some books now, and it's the same. So, my question is, why does Wiki say Americans use double and English single?


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## Guest (Jun 20, 2011)

ilyria_moon said:


> Not in my England, it isn't.
> 
> This is how we were taught to write in England. Perhaps we were the only school in the country to do so?


 That's how we were taught to do it, so your school wasn't the only one. Looking through my book shelves, about equal numbers of books use the single or double quotes.


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## SaraThacker (Jun 19, 2011)

Maybe it's just a lazy person who doesn't know how to look up how to punctuate their book.


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## Sandra Edwards (May 10, 2010)

I'd always heard that was Standard British punctuation. It's interesting to find that that's not necessarily true. 

It's true...you learn something new every day


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## barbara elsborg (Oct 13, 2010)

I've not seen any British published books that have anything but single quotation marks. The American ones all use double. I think what's taught in schools might differ from publishing practice. I don't even notice now whether it's double or single. It shouldn't matter to a reader.


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## Ilyria Moon (May 14, 2011)

barbara elsborg said:


> I've not seen any British published books that have anything but single quotation marks. The American ones all use double. I think what's taught in schools might differ from publishing practice. I don't even notice now whether it's double or single. It shouldn't matter to a reader.


How strange! For me, it's the other way round. All the English literature I have has double quotation marks, all the American, single. Perhaps publishers release editions in both forms.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

nomesque said:


> Standard British punctuation.


Yep. What he said. It's how I learned it and I still (along with the punctuation inside the quotes thing) often correct myself when writing for a US audience.



> In fact, this is an American convention, by my observation.


Not sure who you have been observing but you might want to run that one by CMOS.


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## LunaraSeries (Jun 19, 2011)

All the british books I have read are single. LOTR for example. 

My books are doubles. I learned that single is to quote a quote.


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## jason10mm (Apr 7, 2009)

Yeah, I figure Tolkein, if the single quotations is in his original texts, is correct.

Seems to me that you lose some level of information just doing single quotes, as I think you could write:

An american person said, "I was talking to a british guy today and he said, 'We always use single quotes around our dialogue' to me, how odd of a thing to do, don't you think?"

and it shows with a bit more clarity who exactly is saying what.


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## J. Gunnar Grey (Jun 20, 2011)

Interesting. As a World War II historian, I often read older books, both fiction and nonfiction, and coming from both sides of the pond. A glance through the bookcase shows that most of these, if printed in the UK or Germany, use single quotes. Only Helion (West Midlands) and the US publishers used doubles.

I'd never noticed, so I can't say it matters.


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## HaemishM (Dec 9, 2009)

I use double quotes. The only time I will use single quotes outside of quoting within a quote is when I write a character's internal monologue.


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## Imogen Rose (Mar 22, 2010)

VH Folland said:


> That's how we were taught to do it, so your school wasn't the only one. Looking through my book shelves, about equal numbers of books use the single or double quotes.


My daughter went to school in Wimbledon, learned to use double quotes.


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## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

ilyria_moon said:


> Not in my England, it isn't.
> 
> This is how we were taught to write in England. Perhaps we were the only school in the country to do so?


My apologies... I probably should have said, "standard British _publisher_ punctuation," which would be closer to accurate. I dare say some British publishers use double quotes as their standard, though, too.


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## Dave Dykema (May 18, 2009)

What drives me nuts in when they do something completely different. For instance, I think The Good Earth used something like this when I read it in high school:

--I'm going to sleep.
--So soon? Betty asked.
Ned Nodded. --Yes. I'm tired.
--Okay. See you in the morning.

Yes, I know those names and dialog aren't even close. It's just an example.


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## Dave Dykema (May 18, 2009)

I think The Road by Cormac McCarthy doesn't have any quotation marks, but I'm not sure about that.


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## Joseph Robert Lewis (Oct 31, 2010)

I have never seen quotes used that way. That's interesting. But as a technical editor I would not, could not let it stand!


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I think we now can see why those little books are called "style guides" rather than 'style standards'. 

(Depending on whose style guide you pick, there's about a 50/50 chance that period (full stop for you Brits  ) should have been inside of the quotes.


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## Katie Salidas (Mar 21, 2010)

I have to agree with NogDog. It really comes down to which style guide you have been using. CMOS calls for the double quotes in dialogue and the single to quote within that dialogue so that's what I go with. However, I have seen it the other way around too.


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## ajbarnett (Apr 11, 2011)

I'm English, and I was taught to use double quotation marks for speech, so use it I do.


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## Bigal-sa (Mar 27, 2010)

Here in SAfrica, we're probably more influenced by what goes on in the UK, so I checked some of my books. I did a quick random check, and all books with a UK influence have single quotes for dialogue:
As mentioned, LOTR;
Mary Stewart, _The Last Enchantment_;
John Masters, _Bhowani Junction_;
Wilbur Smith, _Eagle in the Sky_;
John Gordon Davis, _Hold My Hand I'm Dying_.

Interestingly, _The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury_ uses double quotes, whereas HG Wells, _War of the Worlds_ (same vintage) uses single quotes. Sherlock Holmes could have something to do with being an American publication (Avenel) even though it's supposed to be "a facsimile of the original publications in Strand Magazine".


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## Michael Parker (Jun 15, 2011)

I was told by an editor that British publications include single quotation marks, whereas American pubs. use double marks. As a publised writer I have always been in the habit of writing as I was taught, and that was to use the double marks. It amazed me to see, in my first novel NORTH SLOPE, that the editor had changed my speech marks. I wondered where he/she had been educated, but that simply showed my ignorance of publishing requirements. Since using Createspace I have edited my paperbacks for the American market (that shows ambition!), although I would prefer the double speech marks. I don't think it detracts from a good story, either way; it's simply something the reader gets used to, and very quickly too. I have two paperbacks (and Kindle) on Amazon and intend to bring out more, probably using the American style. See them at http://www.michaeljparker.com


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## India Drummond (Nov 1, 2010)

I  had a British publisher tell me that single was the British standard, but I really dislike it, because of the possible confusion with apostrophes.

For example:

'I wouldn't go, if I weren't on the board,' she said.

This boggles me a little, because I always feel like the quote actually ends at the "n" in wouldn't, and it feels to me like "t on the board" is a different quote.

I'm probably the only person that even thinks this way though.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I've seen a few older books where it appears the typesetter only had single quotes in his box of sorts (using mono-spaced font to emphasize the spacing):

Bob said, 'Mary said to me yesterday, ''Be sure to take out the garbage before you leave.'''


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## Amy Corwin (Jan 3, 2011)

SaraThacker said:


> Maybe it's just a lazy person who doesn't know how to look up how to punctuate their book.


I'm sure that's not the case.
Even in traditionally published books, as everyone in this thread has mentioned, there are variations depending upon country (UK style standards versus USA style standards) and individual author/editor stylistic decisions. I've read several crime novels recently published by traditional publishers who chose to "go outside the norm" for punctuation. I'm assuming (charitably) that they did so for impact. I, personally, thought it was annoying, but...

There is variation for a lot of reasons.

As long as the author/publisher does whatever they do consistently, you have to let them "get away with it" whether you like it or not. It doesn't really indicate laziness, or even idiocy. Sometimes it's just an experiment that you can only hope will fail and go away quietly as the author/editor/publishing house realizes that traditional punctuation of whatever nationality has a purpose. I can go with either the single quotes (UK style) or double quotes (USA style) but the double hyphens start to get annoying because there's no way to know where the quote really ends. 

I.e.
--The house is on fire, she said.
As in, "The house is on fire," she said. 
Or, "The house is on fire, she said."
One could argue that everyone knows the "she said" part is the attribution, but...do they? Really? There are some who have a language style that inverts the word order, so that where one person might say, "She said the house is on fire." Another might say, "The house is on fire, she said." Those are often folks who learn English as a second language, but still...

This is, admittedly a stupid example. But I think it gets across my point. Sure, I can read a book (and do read lots of books) that use archane, arbitrary, experimental punctuaction. But I also, invariably, come to places in the book where I'm not sure what the author means. I wind up skipping the section because I can't figure it out and I'm not going to waste too much time on it, even thought it irritates me when I have to move on due to lack of understanding. It makes me feel like an idiot.

Making your reader feel like an idiot is not a great way to win fans, I assure you.

Whew--sorry. I started out just wanting to reiterate something a grammar teacher told me once, "You can do anything you want as long as you're consistent."

I had no idea I'd end up writing a diatribe (due to remembering a book with a particularly annoying punctuation style).

(Please forgive my spelling--I'm hopeless.)


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## Guest (Jun 21, 2011)

Language evolves, and the difference is probably dependent on WHEN you went to school. When I was in high school, we still used the masculine pronoun to signify when gender was unknown. Today, using the plural for a singular pronoun when the gender is unknown has become acceptable in many circles.

Example:

"When a writer wants to pubish, the first thing they must do is..."

THAT would have scored me a big fat* F  * in high school. Today, I see stuff like that all the time in professionally published periodicals and books.


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## Laura Lond (Nov 6, 2010)

Interesting. I have noticed it in British books, and I assumed it was standard British punctuation, too. It doesn't bother me at all as a reader, I quickly adjust.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

loraininflorida said:


> In looking over sample chapters of indie writers on Amazon.com, I noticed several books use single quotation marks to indicate someone talking, and only use double quotation marks when someone talking quotes someone. Is this something new? Is it foreign? I'm just curious. Anyone know? Thanks.


'Standard British "best practice" until recently.'

"These days it is more and more common for 'British' writers, including Commonwealth writers, to follow the American style."

None of this is fixed. I just took down a bunch of my American editions from the shelf. Double curly quotes as expect until-

{{{Mods, I've chosen a book out of print in all editions, so I'm not promoting it, okay?}}}

- I open the W W Norton edition of Reverse Negative and find... single quotes! Now, those with some knowledge of publishing might say that Norton clearly printed from the plates of my London publisher, Secker, but not so. Norton reset but for some reason, perhaps because they thought it looked elegant with their deckle-edged book design, perhaps because the chief character is a very English don, kept the single quotes.

Further investigation of Reverse Negative editions shows that

- a British paperback issue of Reverse Negative has double quotes, presumably in the hope of earning back something for the plates from an American paperback publisher

- the Swedish translation has double quotes

- the Portuguese translation has a dash, as at the beginning of this line, to separate dialogue, with no curly quotes

- the Spanish translation has a dash AND single quotes

- the Greek translation uses double angle brackets like this <<text>>

At this point I remembered that Reverse Negative tells its story in two different fonts and page designs to separate what people do from computer forecasts of what they do, and that in the serif fonts there are curly quotes but in the sans serif tick marks (as in feet and inch marks) are used... I developed such a headache in sympathy with the typesetters, I couldn't face opening another variation, so I just gave up.

But you can bet there are abominations out there that will pop your eyes.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Language evolves, and the difference is probably dependent on WHEN you went to school. When I was in high school, we still used the masculine pronoun to signify when gender was unknown. Today, using the plural for a singular pronoun when the gender is unknown has become acceptable in many circles.
> 
> Example:
> 
> ...


Oh, being sensitive to misuse of the language is definitely an incentive to marry rich so you can afford to send your children to private schools where teachers don't perpetrate these politically correct atrocities.


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## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

Andre Jute said:


> Oh, being sensitive to misuse of the language is definitely an incentive to marry rich so you can afford to send your children to private schools where teachers don't perpetrate these politically correct atrocities.


Yes. God forbid you should gracefully accept culture and language changing around you as inevitable. No! Sit on the beach and command the tide to get the heck back to the ill-educated slum it came from!


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

nomesque said:


> Yes. God forbid you should gracefully accept culture and language changing around you as inevitable. No! Sit on the beach and command the tide to get the heck back to the ill-educated slum it came from!


On the beach? Are you mad? Do you know what sand does to the foie gras?


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## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

Andre Jute said:


> On the beach? Are you mad? Do you know what sand does to the foie gras?


Cattle prods work much better on recalcitrant servants who get sand in the foie gras than knouts ever did. Less effort, too. Fewer medical bills.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

nomesque said:


> Cattle prods work much better on recalcitrant servants who get sand in the foie gras than knouts ever did. Less effort, too. Fewer medical bills.


Your family must be very rich if you can afford such waste. Cattle prods and knouts inspire zero loyalty. What can you be thinking of? No wonder your servants are "recalcitrant".


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

If the proper thing to do were to never change the so-called rules of punctuation, then we would not use quotation marks at all, and instead would indicate quotations via the use of a different typeface (much like _Italics_ are often used now to indicate unspoken thoughts in fiction). Even when quotation marks did come into use with the advent of metal typesetting, if we didn't change those rules, we might still be typesetting quotations something like:

Abraham Lincoln said, "Four score and seven
"years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this
"continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and
"dedicated to the proposition that all men are
"created equal."


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

My son is taking a Brit Lit class this summer, so I asked him to ask his professor.

(American proff, so taken with a grain of salt?) He says Brits used to do the double quote just like Americans, taught it in schools that way, etc.. and that the change came from some of the publishers trying to save typesetting space. Now either is seen as acceptable in the UK, while we Americans have held onto the double quote usage.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

It's really a question of style.

I have seen books like this

"What the hell are you doing?"
"What do you think I'm doing!"

And this

'What the hell are you doing?'
'What do you think I'm doing!'

And even this

-What the hell are you doing?
-What do you think I'm doing!

Jose Saramago goes one step further and removes virtually all punctuation. I don't think anyone will be taking his Nobel Prize off him.


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## Tamara Rose Blodgett (Apr 1, 2011)

*My books are doubles. I learned that single is to quote a quote.- from another post on this thread...

This [above] is what I default to. I confess, I guess I haven't read enough UK-published books to have noticed the difference. And like some of the others that posted, the reader can probably tear through it, either way, without too much challenge.


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## Ilyria Moon (May 14, 2011)

Joseph Robert Lewis said:


> I have never seen quotes used that way. That's interesting. But as a technical editor *I would not, could not let it stand!*


Hehehe


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## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Today, using the plural for a singular pronoun when the gender is unknown has become acceptable in many circles.
> 
> Example:
> 
> "When a writer wants to pubish, the first thing they must do is..."


I have adapted to this, reluctantly. It is better than "he or she" all the time. However I have seen people refer to an individual standing right there, with an obvious gender, as "they."


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

R. Reed said:


> I have adapted to this, reluctantly. It is better than "he or she" all the time. However I have seen people refer to an individual standing right there, with an obvious gender, as "they."


You have the happy choice of getting it in the neck from the grammarians or the feminists.

Me, I want see what they look like before I choose.


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## Coral Moore (Nov 29, 2009)

Andre Jute said:


> You have the happy choice of getting it in the neck from the grammarians or the feminists.


Grammarians don't scare me! (Of course neither do feminists.) I use plural pronouns all the time in that context in speech. I don't do it when I write, and I try to avoid situations where I might have to. I usually use the feminine pronoun in cases where I am forced to use one, just because I can.


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## Grace Elliot (Mar 14, 2011)

loraininflorida said:


> In looking over sample chapters of indie writers on Amazon.com, I noticed several books use single quotation marks to indicate someone talking, and only use double quotation marks when someone talking quotes someone. Is this something new? Is it foreign? I'm just curious. Anyone know? Thanks.


It's UK versus US punctuation. 
I'm a UK writer and use - ' - but it all had to be changed for the US market to - " - 
Very confusing.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Coral said:


> Grammarians don't scare me!


What if he's a handsome young grammarian with rippling muscles, say Aaron Polson?


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

I'm UK and was taught double quotes. Not an age thing either as that's what my teenager is taught now. I always thought single/double was just the preferential house-style of each publication/company.


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## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

Andre Jute said:


> You have the happy choice of getting it in the neck from the grammarians or the feminists.
> 
> Me, I want see what they look like before I choose.


I just meant I have seen someone calling a person standing right in front of them (or his or her - your choice) "they" even though the person's gender is obvious and I would use the correct pronoun. I'm not sure what that has to do with feminists.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

R. Reed said:


> I just meant I have seen someone calling a person standing right in front of them (or his or her - your choice) "they" even though the person's gender is obvious and I would use the correct pronoun. I'm not sure what that has to do with feminists.


Perhaps you aren't old enough to remember when the masculine pronoun was invariably used in cases of unknown or uncertain gender. Pressure from feminists brought us such grammatical delights as "s/he", "he or she", and the "they" you refer to.


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## Kathelm (Sep 27, 2010)

> Perhaps you aren't old enough to remember when the masculine pronoun was invariably used in cases of unknown or uncertain gender. Pressure from feminists brought us such grammatical delights as "s/he", "he or she", and the "they" you refer to.


If you go even further back, "they" was the third person singular pronoun as well. Granted, this was early modern English, before prescriptive grammar took hold.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Kathelm said:


> If you go even further back, "they" was the third person singular pronoun as well. Granted, this was early modern English, before prescriptive grammar took hold.


Ha! If only he knew that, they (heh-heh) could excuse the solecism by claiming historical origins.

Of course you know that certain American usages and intonations have a better provenance -- Plymouth, half a millennium ago -- than the forms that have replaced them in the mother country.


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## Kathelm (Sep 27, 2010)

> Of course you know that certain American usages and intonations have a better provenance -- Plymouth, half a millennium ago -- than the forms that have replaced them in the mother country.


Yes, I had heard that one. It all comes from isolationism, I believe. Sounds like we may have read the same grammar book.


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## mesmered (Feb 2, 2011)

SaraThacker said:


> Maybe it's just a lazy person who doesn't know how to look up how to punctuate their book.


My books have been assessed through draft process by one of the top editorial consultancies in the UK (Cornerstones Literary Consultancy) and they have never suggested that I should change from single quotation marks to double. They are based in London and are responsible for editing and assessing many top authors' manuscripts so I tend to trust their judgement. Its certainly not laziness on my part as a writer.
I read both types of quotations in various novels and it doesn't matter to me what the author uses.

In addition, why should there be a British or American style of English anyway? The word 'english' must surely mean 'english', historically grounded in England. That's enough for me.

By the way, I'm Australian and that's a whole other thing.


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## navythriller (Mar 11, 2011)

I'm going to start using triple quotation marks. (''') That's going to be the first rule in the _Jeff Edwards Manual of Style_ (or lack thereof).


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## mesmered (Feb 2, 2011)

navythriller said:


> I'm going to start using triple quotation marks. (''') That's going to be the first rule in the _Jeff Edwards Manual of Style_ (or lack thereof).


Love it... how very Australian! Buck the system, to hell with it and good luck to all... I had a good laugh.


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## Tara Maya (Nov 4, 2010)

Dave Dykema said:


> What drives me nuts in when they do something completely different. For instance, I think The Good Earth used something like this when I read it in high school:
> 
> --I'm going to sleep.
> --So soon? Betty asked.
> ...


Yes, I agree! I loved The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake except for this one thing. The author refused to use damn quotation marks. I would have taken double or single, anything. Just please use them. Refusing to use standard punctuation is one of the things that gives "literary" fiction a bad name.


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## herocious (May 20, 2011)

Is anyone here a fan of 'scare' quotes?

_Scare quotes are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase to indicate that it does not signify its literal or conventional meaning.
-Wikipedia_


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## Jeff Rivera (Jun 22, 2011)

herocious said:


> Is anyone here a fan of 'scare' quotes?
> 
> _Scare quotes are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase to indicate that it does not signify its literal or conventional meaning.
> -Wikipedia_


I'm a fan when they're not used obsessively. I have seen authors go overboard.


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## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

herocious said:


> Is anyone here a fan of 'scare' quotes?
> 
> _Scare quotes are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase to indicate that it does not signify its literal or conventional meaning.
> -Wikipedia_


I especially LOVE those when placed around 'writer' and 'author'.


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## Kathelm (Sep 27, 2010)

> Is anyone here a fan of 'scare' quotes?


Those are one of my favorite things, especially when they're unintentional.

http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/


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## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

Andre Jute said:


> Perhaps you aren't old enough to remember when the masculine pronoun was invariably used in cases of unknown or uncertain gender. Pressure from feminists brought us such grammatical delights as "s/he", "he or she", and the "they" you refer to.


Yes, I am old enough. I can't seem to make people understand my point, so I will abandon it.

I came here now to say I just started reading an Indie book set in London which uses single quotes. I assume the author is British.


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## SSantore (Jun 28, 2011)

This is an interesting discussion. I taught grammar in American public schools for over twenty years, using several different sources for reference. I always used (and taught) the double quotes for dialogue and single quotes for quotes within dialogue. I've read a lot of books written by British authors, but these books were all published in America, and, perhaps, have been Americanized. I'm currently reading _The Golden Acorn_, an e-book by a British author. She uses the single quote marks for dialogue. At first, it really bothered me, but gradually I stopped noticing it. I do prefer the double quotes.

I never heard the term "scare" quotes, but I do use them sometimes.

I did use he/she sometimes for unknown pronouns, but I taught my students to use which ever single pronoun they wanted to. I personally do not like using they for singular.

Andre Jute, you are a funny person! Love your tongue-in-cheek humor.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

SSantore said:


> Andre Jute, you are a funny person! Love your tongue-in-cheek humor.


Your humble servant.

If you like wit, you should join us at ROBUST. It's a zero rules, zero entry requirement group where you just turn up and start posting. http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/46791.Robust


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

NogDog said:


> I think we now can see why those little books are called "style guides" rather than 'style standards'.
> 
> (Depending on whose style guide you pick, there's about a 50/50 chance that period (full stop for you Brits  ) should have been inside of the quotes.


Little? Have you seen my Chicago Manual of Style? You could cause bodily injury with the thing!  Strunk & White, on the other hand, is pretty slim.


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Arkali? have you seen it on the Kindle? 10 ounces. 

ok.. I kid.. it's not available for Kindle.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> Arkali? have you seen it on the Kindle? 10 ounces.
> 
> ok.. I kid.. it's not available for Kindle.


:snerk: They do have a digital version, though. I believe it's a website subscription. Regardless, it's a monster


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## philvan (May 26, 2010)

ilyria_moon said:


> Not in my England, it isn't.
> 
> This is how we were taught to write in England. Perhaps we were the only school in the country to do so?


Same here. Educated in South Africa and England, with A for A level English. I've always used double quotation marks for dialogue, with single marks for a speaker quoting another. This does sometimes result in the use of a triple mark at the end.
"He just imitated Clint Eastwood, and said, 'Make my Day.'"
Anybody want to weigh in and perhaps suggest two full stops/periods there?


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