7 Uses, 2 Misuses
Quotation marks are paired notations (“” on first occurrence in AmE, ‘’ in BrE) placed at the beginning and end of a quoted word or passage, of a word or phrase referred to as such, or of a definition. A quotation within a quotation normally has single instead of double marks (or, in BrE, double instead of single). It was formerly common to place an initial quotation mark at the beginning of each line quoted, but today the usual practice is to repeat it only at the beginning of each new paragraph.
523 Use quotation marks when you’re quoting a word, phrase, or any passage of 50 or fewer words. (Set off a longer quotation by indenting it on both sides.)
• She told him that she “adored” vaudeville. (Sinclair Lewis)
• The twentieth century, as we know, has frequently been called “the century of the child.” (Havelock Ellis)
• “Good morning, Linda,” Mother said. “You’ve torn your sleeve.” (William Faulkner)
• “Three feet, sir,” replied Johnson, screwing up his eyes against the glare of the newly risen sun. (Richard Woodman)
• Darwin concluded that all domestic breeds of horses stem from a single wild species “of a dun color and more or less striped,” to which modern descendants “occasionally revert.” (J. Frank Dobie)
524 Use quotation marks when (1) referring to a word as a word or a phrase as a phrase (although italics are better if you do this frequently); or (2) providing a definition.
• To call Randolph “the American Burke” is no great exaggeration. (Russell Kirk)
• “Poor little” and “poor old,” I must explain, were among his favorite epithets. (Peter Quennell)
• “To devour a book” has long been a fashionable cliché but nothing more. (Harry C. Bauer)
• “Junk science,” which has become a fashionable pejorative in recent years, does not always mean what a reasonable person would expect it to mean. (Susan Jacoby)
Though I realize that my analogy may not be completely valid, it nonetheless seems perfectly reasonable to me to say that anyone who can negotiate the complexities of getting around efficiently in a place such as Los Angeles certainly has the native intelligence to learn to punctuate. . . . The whole question is one of motivation.
—W. Ross Winterowd
Contemporary Rhetoric
525 Use quotation marks when you mean “so-called” or “self-styled,” or even “so-called-but-not-really.”
• Adams called himself “a constructive anarchist.” (Michael Kammen)
• In 1967, the “normality” of the Barrow gang and their individual aspirations toward respectability are the craziest things about them. (Pauline Kael)
• We got glimpses of women in politics and in such “men’s sports” as boxing, football, and hockey. (Vermout Royster)
• U.S. military authorities are avoiding anything in the nature of a “body count” for Operation Desert Storm. (Christopher Hitchens)
• The most valuable real estate in the Hill Country was in its leading “city,” Fredericksburg. (Robert A. Caro)
• We are as silly as the people in Garrison Keillor’s fictional heartland, where all the children are claimed to be “above average.” (William A. Henry III)
• The “positive evaluation” of passio in the mystical ecstasy of love must also be considered with caution. (Erich Auerbach)
526 Quotation marks are traditionally used for titles of short-format works, such as songs, short stories, poems, articles, and essays, and for those of constituent elements of larger works, such as book chapters and television episodes. But styles vary. Be consistent in using a house style or a standard style manual.
• He’s the definition of a line I used in “Vertigo”: A feeling is much stronger than a thought. (Bono, referring to Daniel Lanois)
• He took over the starring part in every family gathering, warbling such favorites as “Rose Marie” or “Three Little Words” while his sister Olive accompanied him on the piano. (T. Harry Williams)
527 Use single quotation marks for quoted words within a quotation. (The convention in BrE is to begin with single quotation marks and to use double marks for quoted words within a quotation.)
• “That ended amicably, with her singing, by request, ‘Don’t Stand There on the Coconut Mat.’” (James Thurber)
• Another undertaking has been Edward Allen’s tax exams: “After the CFA, I said I was never going to do any exams ever again,” but duty intervened: “It’s always valuable to have a different approach. We sat down and thought, ‘How can we better serve and get closer to our clients?’ And as tax is important to clients it’s important for me as an adviser.” (Giulia Cambieri and Alex Matchett)
528 Use quotation marks to signal a word or phrase used idiomatically—in a way that might otherwise be misread.
• Publicity for the American writer is of the “personality” kind: a photograph in Harper’s Bazaar, bland television appearances . . . the writer as minor movie star, and as unheeded. (Gore Vidal)
• “Just plain” Republicans are the second most critical of the media, but they are never, or hardly ever, uniformly antimedia. (Barry Sussman)
529 Place quotation marks correctly in relation to other punctuation: (1) commas and periods go inside (in AmE); (2) colons and semicolons go outside; and (3) question marks and exclamation marks go either inside or outside, depending on whether they’re part of the quoted matter.
• To counter what she called a “crisis of meaning,” she called for what would amount to a new politics of kindness. (Bob Woodward)
• “This obviously is not a tax-reform bill,” summarized Ways and Means Chairman Al Ullman. “It is an economic tax package.” (Robert L. Bartley)
• His spouse, charmingly attired in frilly negligee, poised behind him with a silver coffee pot, inquired, “More coffee, dear?” (Jerome Beatty Jr.)
• Humphrey cocks his head and gazes up the tall recruit’s nostrils. “Your hygiene is unsatisfactory. Did you shave? No discipline. no discipline!” (Thomas E. Ricks)
• “If wisdom be in suffering,” he argues, why should not soldiers “let the foes quietly cut their throats”? (Donald A. Stauffer)
Preventing Misused Quotation Marks
530 Don’t use quotation marks for a phrasal adjective.
Not this: We now have a plethora of “long distance” services.
But this: We now have a plethora of long-distance services.
Not this: The “so-so” scholar might have secured tenure by courtesy in his first or second post.
But this: The so-so scholar might have secured tenure by courtesy in his first or second post.
531 Don’t use quotation marks merely to emphasize a word or to acknowledge its informality, because doing so looks amateurish and can easily be misunderstood as marking sarcasm.
Not this: His remarks seemed “snarky.”
But this: His remarks seemed snarky.
Not this: I don’t know what can be “done” about it.
But this: I don’t know what can be done about it.
Not this: We offer all types of “hors d’oeuvres.”
But this: We offer all types of hors d’oeuvres.
Not this: On these terms, a person’s daily “earthly” activities are stripped of ethical and social values.
But this: On these terms, a person’s daily earthly activities are stripped of ethical and social values. (Consider deleting earthly.)