Pardon me while I ask a trivial question

Single quotes have one purpose – to nest quotes in quotes. “He said, ‘Hello’.”

One should use a particular convention (either single quotes throughout, or double quotes throughout, as per house style) for all quoted text. Scare quotes are no more significant than use-mention or proper quotation. That’s pretty much the standard in all publishing.

Single quotation marks are only necessary for quotes-within-quotes. Use/mention, scare quotes, hypothetical dialogue etc. can all be regular quotation marks. You are trying to construct a distinction that is neither natural nor necessary, as there are more than two or three things that quotation marks can be used for.

A: If you feel you need to use scarequotes, spell out the point you’re making in words — if it seems heavyhanded to do this, cut the scarequotes.

B: Imagine yourself reading the passage out aloud, making the relevant air-gesture (twice, and dipping your hands as well as your fingers) everytime you’ve used it in print. If your impression of yourself is now “insufferable kn0b”, cut back on them.

C: Repeat B, except say “you and your so-called” instead of the air-gesture.

I tend to use single quotes when I’m talking about the word, and double quotes when I’m quoting someone. I prefer to use single quotes for this purpose because the use of double quotes might suggest I am interpreting someone else’s use of the word.

Not sure how the stylists feel about that; that’s just how I do it.

I don’t think there’s any reason to use scare quotes. If the use is so divergent that it basically creates a new word, then just create a new word. If the use is close enough that it’s the same word, then the quotes are unnecessary. The hypothetical dialog, I think should just use double quotes if regular quoting would.

In general, I think if you’re planning on drawing a distinction between single and double quotes, you should make it fence one paddock off. Otherwise at some point it looks arbitrary (your hypothetical dialog distinction does to me), and then why make a distinction?

If you really want to mess with them, how about occasionally using corner quotes to refer to an intension?

Given that opening and closing quotes are distinguishable, there isn’t any strict need for a typographical distinction between nested (nested-to-odd-depth?) and unnested (nested-to-even-depth-including-zero?) quotes.

Personally, I’m kind of with #9 – I use double quotes for reporting the very words spoken or written on some actual or non-actual occasion (sentence-tokens?), and single quotes for everything else I can currently think of. I had no idea this wasn’t considered OK. Don’t UK newspapers do something like this, particularly for headlines?

Agree with the general opinion that scare quotes (not mention-quotes) are a bit crap, though I’d use them for informal purposes to avoid longwinded circumlocations.

But OTOH, care quotes are mostly used (aren’t they?) for circs in which the word is one commonly used, or used in the salient context, and in which its reference is maintained but the sense, or the kind of content described as ‘thick’, is not wholly endorsed – and often to draw attention to those facts too. So it’s a kind of combination of use and mention. And as there, I’m not quite sure that even locutions such as ‘what is known as..’ can quite do without quotes. And ‘so-called’ without quotes is a bit of a funny one partly because the combined use and mention remains, and partly on the practica grounds that there may be a tendency not to see what is grammatically a modifying adjective as actually (some kind of modal operator?) repudiating the sense/thick content. A bit like:

Lifecycle of a ‘terrorist’:
potential terrorist
aspiring terrorist
suspected terrorist
alleged terrorist
accused terrorist (my own one this)
convicted terrorist (to be fair probably does usually imply actual terrorist)
[freed terrorism convict?]

If a principled distinction were to be made, I suppose double quotes might be used for strict mention and direct speech, i.e. where the context is entirely opaque, and singles for circs in which the word is being used (for reference?) as well as mentioned (for sense?). Though then in-line quotes like: He said that Majewski ‘had been on a massive binge’ where the content is incorporated into the sentence would have to use singles even though they are direct speech…

And what about the practice of putting commas and full stops from the containing sentence inside the quotation marks, as in “Judge not,” admonished Jaques, “lest ye form an opinion.” What’s that all about?

I’m sorry, but we’re talking US convention, yes? A quick scan through all the UK-published books on my shelf shows them all using inverted commas, or single quotation marks, for primary quotations, which is pretty much what I would expect.

On the other hand, I’ve begun to notice a distressing tendency of the major UK news publications — at least the on-line ones — to use double quotation marks, which is really starting to annoy me. Next thing you know, they’ll be misspelling ‘colour’ and ‘eulogise’.

I agree with the comments about the only use pertaining to quotes withing quotes. I also like the approach suggested in #7.

My one experience with confusion about quotes comes from wanting to reference people’s Web searches in papers. The first approach that comes to mind in such a situation is to use quotes around the search terms. However, since quotes can be used as part of a search query, that may be confusing. (And since a lot my writing is about Internet user skill and use of quotes often suggests higher-level skill, I don’t want this to be confusing.) I have approached this in different ways, but have basically avoided use of quotes in such cases. I either italicize the search query terms or put the less-than and greater-than signs around it.

Finally, not to derail discussion, but the point Tim Wilkinson brings up about the placement of commas and periods within quotes when they are not part of the quote has always confused me. Are they really supposed to be within the quote? If yes, why? This also relates to – it seems – the placement of end-of-sentence periods within a close-paren even when the entire sentence wasn’t in parentheses. Why is that so?

Eszter: it is for the sake of tidiness. If the stop is not carefully tucked under the end of the paranthesis or quote it will likely roll away and litter some other bit of the page.

I’m a US reader, and I have to confess I’m a bit surprised at how overwhelming the support is (at least amongst my compatriots) for “double quotes except for nested quotations.” Clearly this is my philosophical bias, but I side with #9 and #17: double quotes are for actual quotations; single quotes for various other (mostly philosophical) usages. But more than just reiterate the position, I’m curious about why people are so adamant about the aversion to single-quotes (other than simple adherence to style guides). The comments seem to suggest something like Rich (#3)’s rationale: “You are trying to construct a distinction that is neither natural nor necessary, as there are more than two or three things that quotation marks can be used for.” But it seems odd to me to say “double quotes can be used for more than one thing; ergo, they should be used for everything you would want to use quotes for.” In the case of use/mention, we have a convention amongst a community of language users which 1. is clear to all such users and 2. little affects the wider convention about the usage of double quotes. I’m curious why style editors would really care one way or another about what symbol philosophers use for their notation.

Back on topic, my all time favourite election fixing attempt was Ferdinand Marcos using lepers as poll clerks in opposition dominated districts of Manila during the Philippines elections in 1985, as related in James Hamilton Paterson’s America’s Boy. Didn’t work, as it happens.

No explanation why philosophy is special in this regard.

Surely the answer can’t be so goofy as that the Brits writing about use-mention issues, being British, used single quotes, and the Americans, slavishly following them, used single quotes too?

The other is the right way up.

But too high up. An “elated comma.”

No, my gaydar would totally have gone off if that second comma were really inverted.

I’d only use single-quotes for nested quotations, and double quotes for everything else, including the string “Boston”.

I’d think it OK if a book reversed the convention and used double quotes for nested quotations and single quotes for everything else. Many old British books do this.

If I was programming, I’d write

static char *str = "\”Boston\””;

I see the problem that if you really need to mention “Boston”, “‘Boston’” is potentially confusing, because the mentioned string actually starts with a double quote, not a single quote. But then,in the C example, str doesn’t contain a backslash either – there’s an understanding that the nested quotes get transformed.

Drat. What I wrote was mangled by the web site.

I meant to say:

static char *str = "\"Boston\"";

Engels fails to consider how analytic philosophy may have been shackled for decades by confining itself to single quotation marks. Made of inverted commas, at that — alert James Dobson!

In particular, in chapter 3 of your Plato book I’d have used double quotes in most (perhaps all, though I havent checked all of them) places where you’ve used a single quote.

Second, Plato insists that the forms are ‘self-predicating’.

That’s quoting Plato, so I’d give it double quotes like your other quotations.

How many letters in the phrase ‘dancing cow’?

That sentence is talking about the string “dancing cow” (as opposed to a dancing cow), and it isn’t quoting anyone, but I’d still give it double quotes.

The oracle:
‘In British style, single quotes are normally used, except for quotations within quotations … The standard US style is double quotes, with single within double. … Some authors have their own system of quotation marks, which they are anxious to retain; for example … double quotes for quotations and single quotes for words or phrases used in a special sense. Try to persuade your author not to do this, as it can be more confusing than helpful.’
Judith Butcher, top copy editor of the world, in Butcher’s copy editing, CUP.

To be fair, after this typically clear, sensible, Grenfellian prescription [‘Willard, don’t do that.’], Judith does relent, at least to the extent of listing four usages that may be used, tolerated anyway, ‘in more complex books’.

John’s Plato book is a great source of tricky cases. From p. 42:

There are many individual tokens of the letter e on this page.

I would say that’s a mention of “e”, but it’s been marked with bold face rather than (single or double) quotation marks.

“token” is also in bold. It’s being emphasized, but the bold also has a quote-like function (in effect, saying, “things that are called ‘tokens’”.)

Second, Plato insists that the forms are ‘self-predicating’.

If this was meant to be read as a quotation of Plato, I’d have used double quotes. But if it’s just a mention of the term “self-predicating” (perhaps introduced by commentators on Plato via the Latin “predicare” …) putting it in bold might have been clearer.

These matters are set by house style, so go with the editor’s strictures, but have you thought of using European quotes for the use-mention matter? «This» is mentioned, while this is used…

The British style is that punctuation goes inside the quotes only when the punctuation was part of the text quoted. American style appears to be that punctuation always goes within the quote. The British style is more rational, as it makes clear what the original text was.

Many old British books do this.

Not just old ones. My sharp-eyed students noticed that the 1999 Americanized edition of the Oxford Latin Course uses single quotes for quotations, and only uses double quotes for nested quotations

This falls somewhere on the importance scale of do you eat your boogers, do you wipe them on your socks or do you pull out your handkerchief and carefully wipe them off, when you have formalized that question of the ages then start worrying about single quotes.

[self exile @51 division of labour – you cover the choice between your strange trichotomy of vile practices, we’ll do the single quote stuff. Just one helpful pointer, though – you might want to step back and distinguish between snot and bogies (=boogers?). I’d recommend dealing with things quickly and decisively, at the liquid stage.]

Scare-quotes: using a word with reservations. Why? Initial very rough thoughts, descriptive not approbative:

1. It is someone else’s usage (but you are not quoting any particular utterance)
2. It is the natural or even only word to use to refer to something, but you do not want to endorse some aspect of its meaning (construe broadly).
3. It is a term or usage new to your audience and you want to draw attention to it/that fact.
4. You are in the course of asserting that a word has no sense or null extension, e.g. the not-true There is no ‘truth’.
Any of these could be avoided by restatement – though it may be necessary to retain mention-quotes.

Would a complete worked-out policy on quotes for philosophy/linguistics need also to comprehend the use of bold and italics? I have sometimes enountered the problem of nesting those, too (italics anyway)…does Chicago have anything to say on that, or indeed on quotes nested to depth>1?

Since use and mention can be combined by use of scare-quotes or in-line quotes (or indeed without use of quotes as in ‘Rufus was so-called because of his hair-colour’), can we analyse such combination into use/mention of, say, words, sense, reference? I think use of a word may entail use of its sense, but not sure about other entailments. Not even sure that this approach doesn’t rest on an error.

Perhaps ‘attributive mention’ is a category worth adding to ‘use’ and ‘mention’.

First rough speculative draft of a possible line of analysis with very tentatively suggested values (Though I now think this is all wrong and actually ‘needs’ to be reconceived…):

(Need to add category of ‘repudiation’ on the use/mention axis? Maybe add thick content/connotations/overtones/implicatures to its objects? get out more…)

W=word/phrase/sentence; S=sense; R=reference.
U=use; M=mention; A=attributive mention; N=null/none; ?=definitely dunno.

They abused me with the word 'idiot'. . . . . . . . . . . W:M S:N R:N
'You are an idiot', they chanted. . . . . . . . . . . . . W:A S:? R:?
I was met with taunts of 'idiot'. . . . . . . . . . . . . W:A S:? R:N
They called me 'idiot'. (usage?). . . . . . . . . . . . . W:A S:? R:N
They called me 'Idiot'. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . W:M S:N R:N
They addressed me as 'idiot'. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . W:A S:N R:N
They called me an 'idiot'.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . W:A S:? R:N
That 'idiot' was me.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . W:A S:A R:U
The 'idiot' they referred to was me.. . . . . . . . . . . W:A S:? R:U
That 'idiot' (as they put it) was me. . . . . . . . . . . W:M S:A R:U
That so-called 'idiot' was me.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . W:A S:A R:U
An 'idiot' is often just someone one disagrees with.. . . W:M S:M R:N
He is an 'idiot savant', or wise fool.. . . . . . . . . . W:U S:U R:N
In Victorian usage, an 'idiot' fell between
. . a 'moron' and an 'imbecile' in intelligence.. . . . . W:M S:M R:N
They said that she was 'an idiot on stilts'.. . . . . . . W:A S:A R:N
They said that she was 'an idiot on stilts',
. . whatever that is supposed to mean.. . . . . . . . . . W:A S:N R:N
They said that she was an 'idiot', meaning 'savant' . . . W:A S:N R:N
Hoffman mugged his way through the 'idiot savant' role
. . . and was rewarded with the inevitable Oscar. . . . . W:U S:U R:?
Maybe I'm naive or even an 'idiot'. . . . . . . . . . . . W:M S:U R:N

I second what John S. Wilkins says: “The British style is that punctuation goes inside the quotes only when the punctuation was part of the text quoted. … The British style is more rational, as it makes clear what the original text was.” I find the U.S. style illogical and irritating. But I suppose there are (probably) more important things in life to worry about.

Two three thoughts:

* It’s a student text, so I’d prefer the word + single quotes for use-mention and double quotes for in-line quotation: We know the word ‘kettle’ has six letters.

* I don’t think scare quotes should be used in a student text. If someone else is using a word problematically, use double quotes to indicate you’re quoting them, just as you’d use scare quotes. If there’s no reference to a third party who is supporting the problematic definition, there’s no need for scare quotes.

* It’s unbelievably hard to type “scare quotes” without encasing the phrase in scare quotes.

I’m an editor. If you don’t use the same quotes for all usages, I’ll correct you so that you do. If you use single quotes for one thing and double quotes for another, I’ll consider you a buffoon. If you don’t mind being the object of mockery, carry on with it.

For URLs and web searches, angled brackets are a good compromise.

You have run into a copy editor who prays to the Chicago Style Manual – a loathsome piece of work designed to dumb down the American English Language and ensure that all writers sound/look exactly the same. Be glad you’re not trying to write fiction in the vernacular.