Talk:Quotation mark/Archive 4

History of the glyphs
When were quotation marks first used? Why are there so many different kinds? How did they evolve? — Omegatron 04:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
 * That's a great question. I'd looked into this a bit but couldn't find much information online, so left it to a more knowledgable contributor. From what I've found, quotation marks used to be written in the margin of a page, kind of like a symbolic designation of blockquotes. Davilla 21:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Split this page
I would like to see the English usage and non-English usage in separate articles.Abtract 16:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Other languages and scripts
There's no mention of the Arabic language or script. What about the South Asian scripts? Thai? Anybody know? SDC 12:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Polish qoutation marks
In Polish we would use »such« marks inside of a quotation rather than «such». Botev.

Quotes within Quotes: Discuss
For quotes within quotes, spaces are unnecessary; when you start a single open quote (i.e. ‘) within a double open quote (i.e. “), it is understood that at if the single end quote ends with the sentence, there will be three end quote marks placed after the comma or period (i.e. ,’” or .’”) and before a colon or semicolon (’”: or ’”;). Thus, a space between the ending single and double quotes (i.e. ’ ”) is superfluous, making it look awkward. Besides, where is documentation in proof of this claim? Search Google and you will see examples supporting a no-space rule. Also, you will never see a newspaper or magazine use a space between ending single and double quotation marks. Perhaps in academia, but never otherwise. This looks awkward: (“‘awkward.’ ”) and so does (“ ‘awkward.’ ”); but this looks fine: (“‘fine.’”)

English: “‘Discuss.’”

Original research/references
I've tagged this article as original research. Perhaps I've overreacted and should just have tagged it as unreferenced. But it seems to me that all the wonderful, patient discussion on this page fails to cite any proper references, and is hence dubious. mg e kelly 12:36, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think you are overreacting. I think the target for this page should be that the reader should be confident in the advice. As a British person with some competence in punctuation, I am troubled by the various statements of British use, which we would not recognise as such. I did some looking around and I can understand the problem, a lot of the information on the web is American and casually states that there are some British English rules, yet these don't seem to conform to what I understand as the rules. Also, I know that there is not a good understanding of what the rules are supposed to be, so it is difficult to distinguish between proper and common usage (I avoid the word correct deliberately). Spenny 17:09, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Another point I don't see made strongly enough here is that there is rarely a single set of rules governing usage, particularly such fundamental usage as punctuation. Surely the punctuation rules applied to a scholarly journal are not the same as those enforced by a newspaper editor, a mass-market book publisher, a teacher at a public school, etc. Is one set of rules correct, and the others simply debased forms? Is there some Platonic superset of rules that constitutes ideal puncutation? I think not. This kind of objectivist position was strong in the Victorian era but has less credibility today. Punctuation is, like other aspects of language, a living thing representing the consensus of practitioners. Trevor Hanson 00:22, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Y?ou sa!id "it!. :P" --Ryan Heuser 15:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Marking a foreign vocabulary
Is it correct to use German or English quotation marks around 'Auto' when writing "The German word ‘Auto’ means ‘car’."? - 80.141.241.19 14:30, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Generally, use the punctuation of the ‘outer’ language so the example above is correct, as is Das englische Wort „car“ bedeutet „Auto“. Zeimusu | Talk page 14:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Scandinavian quotation-dash usage
Besides the languages already listed in the "Quotation dash" section, Swedish and Danish occasionally use the dash this way. Swedish, in fact, has an informal nickname for the quotation dash: pratminus (literally "talk-minus"). (I considered adding those facts to the section itself, but couldn't find a suitable place; any suggestions?) --Ingeborg S. Nordén 17:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Space before question mark
Since this page focuses on puncuation, I added a space before the question mark in the French sentence (Est-ce que vous...). This is standard before question marks, exclamation points, colons, etc.

--Stephen24


 * Good call, although it must be a non-breaking space, so that the question mark doesn't fall at the start of a line. —Michael Z. 2006-09-27 02:41 Z 

Swedish quotation marks
According to the third version of "Typografisk Handbok" (Typography Handbook), by Christer Hellmark, 2000, ISBN 9173246069, there are three ways to use quotation marks in Swedish: The article does not list Swedish as using the third way of quoting, which would've been true 50 years ago. Hellmark also suggests that the use of endash for quoting in Swedish implies the quote isn't exact, while using any quotation marks means exact quotes.
 * 1) ”quoted text, with a ’quote in the quote’”
 * 2) »quoted text, with a ’quote in the quote’» (traditional)
 * 3) »quoted text, with a ’quote in the quote’« (recommended, today more common in Swedish than the above)

Split from Talk:Quotation mark
The following is a copy of Talk:Quotation mark up to the point when this page was split off. Abtract 20:27, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Discuss split/merge/etc. at Talk:Quotation_mark — Omegatron 22:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Chinese a „European language“?
Under the European languages section of this article, Chinese traditional, and simplified are listed...why?

How are punctuations used in quotes that are followed by citations?
This could be included in this article because in scientific writing, this situation is often encountered. For example (observe the full-stops used here), which is the correct way to include the following citation -- "cold-blooded but prefers to eat hot-blooded animals." in the following sentences?:

The iguana is said to be "cold-blooded but prefers to eat hot-blooded animals." (Simon and Garfunkel, 1970).

OR

The iguana is said to be "cold-blooded but prefers to eat hot-blooded animals" (Simon and Garfunkel, 1970).

Note that the full-stop is within the quotes and outside the quotes here. Which is the correct


 * As far as I'm aware - either...let me explain - because the "." is in the quotation marks, it is self-contained and doesn't actually end the sentence. If it were to be the end of a sentence, you need to add another fullstop at the end anyway - ie: The iguana is said to be "cold-blooded but prefers to eat hot-blooded animals.". If it's a fullstop at the end of a quotation before the quotation marks end, it doesn't actually end the whole sentence - just the sentence within the quotation marks. Put in the fullstop if there is a fullstop after the word "animals" or don't is there isn't - and put one at the very end of YOUR sentence (after the citation) as well. Although I'm English and use the British rule - I doubt it matters so much that someone of another nationality would think it's completely, utterly wrong. --Andyroo316 18:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I guess you didn't notice the split but it may be better to take this thread to Talk:Quotation mark. I have posted a copy there to help Abtract 19:41, 15 November 2006 (UTC)