Lykkwid

I have been taught to use quotations like this

"Hello there," said Joe Average

yet in every book I see they do it like this

'Hello there,' said Joe Average

so what is the correct way?!

type

The first way.

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Lykkwid

Then why do all books do it the second way?

Spudley

The correct form that we're all taught is the double-quote. When it comes to publishing though, it seems that you're right - most books seem to use single quotes.

I've just done a whip-through of my book collection to check - almost all of them use single quotes. The exceptions were Michael Chrighton's and Terry Pratchet's books, as well as Foxes Christian Martyrs, though since that's a 15th century book, it probably doesn't have much bearing on the argument.

The message from this is a bit mixed. If most authors published use single quotes, it's obviously something that editors like. But if Michael Chrighton and Terry Pratchet are using double quotes, they would seem to be good examples to follow, especially since they both use speech extensively in their writing.

So lets take a different approach: why would writers use different quote marks?

I have a theory. I think it's purely a matter of convenience. On the standard keyboard layout, the double quote mark is a shifted character (ie you have to press "shift" and "2" to get the quote character), but the single quote mark is unshifted. The net result is that if you're typing a lot of them, you can save yourself a lot of key strokes by using single quotes. That alone may explain a lot of why many authors use them. Another reason may be an attempt by publishers to make the page look less busy.

But whatever the reason, I would still prefer to stick with double-quote marks.

For starters, the single quote mark is the same as an apostrophe. Which means that if you have apostrophes in your speech (which is likely), you stand the chance of confusing your reader (not a big chance, I'll accept, but better to eliminate the chance entirely).

Secondly, if you use double quotes, and your publisher turns round and asks for single quotes, it's relatively easy to using a word processor to replace them all. But the same is not true the other way round, because you'd end up converting all your apostrophes as well.


Ho hum. I was going to make this a short and brief reply, and it's turned into an essay... hehehe. Well, I can only hope it's been useful. No? uh... interesting, then? hmm.... ah well.

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type

You spelled it out very well Spudley. Right on! Everything that you said is right on the money.

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Lykkwid

Yes, except my Terry Pratchett book, The Colour of Magic, uses single quotes not double:O

Spudley

Hmmm.... The Pratchett book I've got (Reaper Man) definitely does use double quotes (I've got a couple of others, but I don't have them to hand to check).

So I guess it sounds like he's used different quote marks in different books. Interesting.

But either way, I stick with what I said before - use double quotes. If nothing else, it's always easy enough to change them to singles afterward if you want to.

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Kitten Courna

It might say something on the matter in Elements of Style, however I can't be sure.

-Kitten

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Fantasia

I still prefer the double quotes, though I could see how much easier it might be for some folks to go with singles simply because one doesn't have to press the shift key, and this might be especially true with those big typewriters (my grandma still has one of those.)

Is it even remotely possible that it's a matter of--oh--cost cutting? I don't know how much ink a press uses and whether a single or double quote makes any diffference at all in mass production. It sounds ridiculous, but the other day, my husband, my sister in law and I went through a Wendy's drive through to buy 1 order of Biggie sized fries we could share, and when we asked for extra napkins the person at the window said that it was only one napkin per order of fries... after that, the ink-saving-on-quotes didn't seem so preposterous.

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gabriella

It depends. I always use single quotes when I'm writing by hand, since I can never remember to do the double.

It doesn't really matter, really. It's not a law or anything. Teachers say a lot of things - for instance, everyone's been told never to start a sentence with "but" or "and" and yet no published writer follows that rule.

Teachers say that because it's easier to teach and explain one thing to a group of third graders than to confuse them and get into long details on when you can use But or And. It's easier to teach and doesn't lead to so many questions, like whether you can use question marks instead of quotations or whatever, it's easier when you're explaining quotes within quotes, etc.

Bottom line, is that it really doesn't matter. Whether or not the manuscripts were submitted that way or the publisher changed it is unknown to me, but the fact is that there are a lot of things little writers have been taught, only to read books set for an older audience and realize that, oh my God, every single rule they've been taught has been discarded like a chewed up teddy bear.

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Whende

I always learned to do it with double-quotes so it's become a habit to hit the shift everytime I make a quote. Sometimes when typing an apostrophe I will accidently make double quotes instead so I will always stick with double quotes.

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Avarice

I made a post almost exactly the same as your months ago and no one knew for sure, write using which ever type you like, the editor always has the final say, and if you disagree with him, car bomb.

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Saponification

Depends on the author, the publisher, the flavour of the language. I dig double quotes, but I'm a bit old school.

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chaos

huh? i've NEVER seen a single book use single quotes rather than double for ordinary dialogue.

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Ben

Ever read Harry Potter? Single quotes in there.