QUOTATION MARKS
Quotation marks are signs used to indicate that the writer is giving exactly the words of another. A French printer named Morel used a comma in the outer margin to indicate a quoted line about 1550. About a century later another Frenchman, Ménage, introduced a mark («») resembling a double parenthesis but shorter. These marks were cast on the middle of the type body so that they could be reversed for use at either the beginning or the end of a quotation. The French have retained these signs as their quotation marks ever since.
When the English adopted the use of quotation marks, they did not take over the French marks, but substituted two inverted commas at the beginning and two apostrophes at the end of the quoted paragraph. These marks are typographically unsatisfactory. They are weak and therefore hardly adequate to their purpose in aiding the understanding through the eye. Being cast on the upper part of the type body, they leave a blank space below and thus impair the beauty of the line and interfere with good spacing. Certain rules for the position of quotation marks when used with other marks are based upon these typographical considerations rather than upon logical considerations.
Rules for the Use of Quotation Marks
1. Every direct quotation should be enclosed in double quotation marks.
“I will go,” said he, “if I can.”
Reports of what another person has said when given in words other than his own are called indirect quotations and take no marks.
He said he would go if he could.
2. A quotation of several paragraphs requires quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph, but at the end of the last one only. In legal documents, and sometimes elsewhere, quotations are defined and emphasized by putting double commas at the beginning of every line of the quotation.
The same result may be better obtained by using smaller type, or indenting the quotation, or both.