When was the quotation mark invented

As a tool for note-takers like stenographers, telegraphers, and business secretaries, the typewriter had no need for the flourish of the curled quote—and it would have added cost, as MacCormack noted. As metal typesetting equipment moved on an inexorable path towards extinction, typewriters begat teletypewriters, and those begat computer keyboards.

Virtual keyboards have mostly followed the physical style. You have to hold down the quote. The effort of typing one on a regular keyboard [also] can be prohibitive. For wonks, you can find cheatsheets for explicit shortcuts on desktop machines, like Shift-Option-] for a curly apostrophe on the Mac, but it requires additional effort and memorization.

Even when a writer gets things right, the CMS remains a stumbling block. Conceivably, if they wanted to, all CMS designers could employ algorithms to always make the curl happen. So perhaps curled quotation marks will again have their day. Not really. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. This example shows the standard way of mentioning foreign words: the foreign word is put into italics , and an English translation, if provided, follows in single quotes, with no other punctuation.

Observe that neither a comma nor anything else separates the foreign word from the gloss. In this case, it is clearly necessary to use italics for citing English words, reserving the single quotes for the glosses. Summary of quotation marks: Put quotation marks single or double around the exact words of a direct quotation.

Inside a quotation, use a suspension to mark omitted material and square brackets to mark inserted material. Use quotation marks to distance yourself from a word or phrase or to show that you are using it ironically. Place single quotation marks around a word or phrase which you are talking about.

To highlight a key term or phrase e. To refer to a numeral as itself because the meaning is sufficiently clear without quotation marks. Correct: The teacher rewarded the class with tokens. This guidance has been revised from the 6th edition.