in Design
Quotation marks and apostrophes, straight and curly
Straight quotes are a typewriter habit. In a printed book, the right marks, and the right way round, matter more than they seem to.
Quotation marks and apostrophes are among the most common punctuation in fiction, and among the most frequently set wrong. The errors are small, but they appear on almost every page, and a careful reader notices them.
Straight and curly
Typewriter keyboards had room for only one quotation mark and one apostrophe, both straight vertical strokes that did duty for opening and closing marks alike. Computer keyboards inherited them. In typesetting, they are sometimes called dumb quotes.
Printed books use typographic quotation marks, often called curly or smart quotes. There are separate opening and closing forms: an opening mark shaped like a small 6 and a closing mark shaped like a small 9, in single or double versions. In most typefaces they are clearly shaped and do not look like the straight marks at all.
Straight quotes in a printed book look like an error, because they are one. They usually come from text pasted from another source, or from software settings that did not convert them.
Single or double
British publishers commonly use single quotation marks for direct speech and quotations, with double marks for quotations within quotations. American practice is usually the reverse. Neither is universal, and some British publishers use double marks. What matters is choosing one style and applying it consistently, which the editor and typesetter need to agree before pages are set.
Related conventions follow from the house style too, such as whether punctuation goes inside or outside the closing mark. British style generally places it according to sense, while American style usually puts full stops and commas inside. Again, consistency is the goal.
Apostrophes and primes
In typesetting, the apostrophe is the same character as the closing single quotation mark: the 9 shape. It is never the 6 shape.
This causes a predictable problem. Software that converts straight quotes to curly ones decides which way to turn each mark based on what comes before it. After a space, it assumes an opening quotation mark. So an apostrophe at the start of a word, as in abbreviations like ’tis, ’em or rock ’n’ roll, or in a shortened year like the ’90s, is often turned the wrong way, producing a mark that looks like an opening quote.
These errors survive because they look almost right. They need to be searched for deliberately, using the layout program’s find function, at the start of typesetting and again at proof.
Straight marks do have a proper typographic counterpart, but it is not a quotation mark. The prime and double prime are used for feet and inches, minutes and seconds of arc, and some mathematical notation. They are usually slanted strokes, distinct from both straight quotes and curly quotes. A measurement like 5 feet 10 inches written with symbols should use primes, not quotation marks.
Checking the text
Most errors come into a book before typesetting. Authors write in word processors that may be set to convert marks automatically or not, and files often combine text from different sources. The most reliable approach is to convert all straight marks during preparation of the typescript, then search for the problem cases: apostrophes at the start of words, quotation marks next to dashes or ellipses, marks at the start of a paragraph of continuing speech, and nested quotations.
In fiction, where a paragraph of speech continues into the next paragraph, the convention in both British and American styles is to omit the closing mark at the end of the first paragraph and repeat the opening mark at the start of the next. Automatic conversion can mishandle this too.
Quotation marks are small. They should be exactly right, and nobody should have cause to look at them.