The symbols to use for quotoation marks varies with the language, and even with regional preferences. Your example appears to fall in line with UK Engilsh usage, which is the opposite of the USA usage. I'm not sure what you do in Norway.

Are you asking about the straight typewriter style marks as opposed to the curly quote and apostrophe marks one sees in typeset text?

The only time to use bold marks is when the whole of the enclosed text is also set bold.

There is some controversy as to whether to add extra spacing around quotation marks, particularly the singles so as to distinguish them from apostrophes.

I'd go into more detail, but others can speak on this with more authority and I'm too tired, it being near 2 AM here.

These forums have a script that automatically corrects these marks, so nobody will be able to tell quite what you've tried to show us.

The apostrophe is generally the the same as a closing single quotation mark. I hope what ‘she’ said is not what someone actually has been telling you.

The key on your keyboard contains the so-called ‘straight quotes’, inherited from typewriters, that we use informally in computer communications; these should not be used in print except as inch and foot marks.

UK usage prefers single quotes, and then double quotes for quotations nested within them.

USA usage prefers double quotes, and then single quotes for quotations nested within them. It has also become popular to use single quotes for isolated terms of one or two words, e.g. above.

I’m not sure why there’s any confusion about this, or why this is a Typophile thread.

British usage is not “the opposite of USA usage.” Setting aside for a moment the fact that there is more than one usage in the U.K. (e.g., Monocle uses British English but double quotation marks at first instance), the differences are wider than that. British orthography places periods and commas inside quotation marks only for direct utterances and outside in other cases. U.S. (also Canadian) usage puts them inside quotation marks always.

There is no distinction in Unicode between an apostrophe and a closing single quotation mark. This is a serious defect, but it will never change. There is also no way to distinguish the usages of neutral opening quote, neutral closing quote, and neutral apostrophe; they’re all one character.

The example in your fifth paragraph isn’t realistic, because the whole sentence would probably not be quoted.

In any event, it is invariant that you alternate double-single or single-double when nesting quotes. The only variable is which one you start off with. British tends to use single; U.S. and Canadian always uses double.

All this is easily Googled or, better, looked up in Fowler’s or Strunk and White or any English-usage book.

--
Joe Clark
http://joeclark.org/

Hi, since lots of people don't know how to use apostrophes/quotation marks correctly (or misuse dumb quote), can anyone fill in my attachment?
Thanks.

There are two alternatives to nesting quotes, both of which omit them.

The first is to set the quoted matter in its own paragraph, slightly smaller.
The second is to just leave out the quote marks, if that doesn't complicate the meaning of the text.

De Vinne (Correct Composition, 1901) quotes the Bible, without quote marks:

And he came unto his father, and said, My father : and he said, Here am I ; who art thou, my son ?
And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy firstborn...

(I would have made that quoted text smaller, but I couldn't get the "small" tag to work.)

There are well more than two alternatives to quotation marks, but having to go back 106 years to find one is a punchline, not an answer. Everyone here knows perfectly well that quotation marks can scarcely ever be avoided and apostrophes even less often (probably never).

The original question did not ask for historical alternatives to quotation marks. This is a person who is not clear on basic usage, not someone who wants the most recherché possible alternative.

--
Joe Clark
http://joeclark.org/

Pardon me for deviating, Joe, but I do like a bit of serendipity.

Another alternative to quote marks: speech balloons.

There is no distinction in Unicode between an apostrophe and a closing single quotation mark

The apostrophe is generally the same as a closing single quotation mark. I hope what ‘she’ said is not what someone actually has been telling you.

Talking about Unicode, there are quite a few codepoints whose ‘phenotypes’ can look identical. The one bearing the name APOSTROPHE (U+0027) isn’t one of those. And it isn’t a real apostrophe either.

We got the RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK (U+2019), which is commonly used for

• guess what—a right single quotation mark in some languages, English among them
• an elision like don’t or ’07

On U+02BC we have the MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE. I wonder if that would be the one Joe is missing—and the one that would be appropriate for elisions. Even if it was, the keyboard accessibility of U+02BC doesn’t go well with the frequency of the apostrophe in English language.

Furthermore, there is the COMBINING COMMA ABOVE (U+0313) and the COMBINING GREEK KORONIS (U+0343), both for combining diacritical marks. They aren’t used in English, however they (can) look like the others and shouldn’t be confused.

@SharQ
All the glyphs in your example are on the right side of a word, and they’re followed by white-space.
Therefore:

1. single right quotation mark (German style—single ones normally for nested quotations, see #4)
2. single right quotation mark (English style)
3. Comma (You know that, don’t you? Or: Can be used in Italian and Albanian* as single right quotation mark—I question that)
4. double right quotation mark (German style—double is standard)
5. double left quotation mark (German style—wrong placement! Or: Can be used in Italian and Albanian* as double right quotation mark.)
6. single prime (U+2032 or U+0027 (to denote minutes, foot etc.—wrong placement!)
7. double prime (to denote seconds, inch etc.—wrong placement!)

Of course, there are a lot of other interpretations and possible combinations, depending on the context. Correct me if there’s sth. wrong.

*) According to Forssman/de Jong: Detailtypografie. Verlag Hermann Schmidt Mainz, 2002. S.92: Fremdsprachen – Akzente und Anführungszeichen

U+02BC […] appropriate for elisions.

No, according to Karl Ove Hufthammer it isn’t.

Letter Apostrophe.
U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE is preferred where the apostrophe is to represent a modifier letter (for example, in transliterations to indicate a glottal stop). In the latter case, it is also referred to as a letter apostrophe.

Punctuation Apostrophe.
U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK is preferred where the character is to represent a punctuation mark, as for contractions: “We’ve been here before.” In this latter case, U+2019 is also referred to as a punctuation apostrophe.

For those who want to dig even deeper: The Unicode Consortium on Writing Systems and Punctuation [pdf]

> Canadian always uses double

Not really. University of Toronto Press, at least, has long used the single quote first. The reason is it provides better typographic colour to the page. A lot of double quote marks look like some insect has crapped all over the page. The single marks are less obtrusive, and make the reading flow easier to process.

Many, although not all, academic publishers in Canada frequently use "British" punctuation (and spellings like artefact): one publisher told me "makes us look like we know what we are talking about, even though we're putting out crap."

sigh

As in all usage questions, the stock answer is "get the manual generally used by either your country or profession, follow it, and be consistent."

What bugs me is that when I use the U+2018 LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK as a opening quotation mark, and the U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK as a closing quotation mark; it get really confusing when I use U+2019 as an apostrophe within the quotation! It looks like I am closing the quotation all the time. (Which was my original concern at the beginning of the thread.)

I note that you are from Norway, which uses "guillemets" as the standard quote marks, if I am not mistaken.
Perhaps this is colouring your perception?
In the English-speaking countries, people are habituated to the ambiguity of the apostrophe/right quote, and more attuned to solving it through the contextual meaning of words.

It looks like I am closing the quotation all the time.
Right, from a technical point of view it’s illogical—a machine wouldn’t swallow that mess … But the human eye isn’t that nit-picking, fortunately.

To Florian: thanks so much (I used the glyph on the right side just to keep in mind the right proportion with the other glyphs). The tirdh glyph is not a comma but the single right quotation mark (i used FF Absara TF Bold SC by Xavier Dupré). So, what's the right placement for glyph 6 and 7? And, above all, what's the difference in using single quotes instead of double quotes? For me, single quoting get the text an ancient effect. Am I wrong?
P.S. I write from Italy and we use double quotes and guillemots to regularly quote text. Personally, I don't use single quotes because of ambiguity with lots of italian words that need apostrophes as in l'"identità visuale" or dell'"incommensurabilità".

So, what’s the right placement for glyph 6 and 7?
It’s a unit, so: after a number. :-)

what’s the difference in using single quotes instead of double quotes?
Sometimes you have a text with nested quotes (a quote within a quote, see Aleksandersen’s original post). Then you may want to use both to make it clear. Which one where? That’s language (and region) specific, as others pointed out before.

Detailtypografie (see above) says that this is how Italians do it:
« citazione » / «‹ citazione › annidata in citazione » (with some extra whitespace, French style)
or alternatively
“ citazione „ / “‘ citazione , annidata in citazione „
Especially the latter rings hollow … Maybe you can confirm/disprove?

Thanks Florian.