“ ”

“ U+201C, “ LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK ← ‛ General Punctuation ” →

” U+201D, ” RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK ← “ General Punctuation „ →

A British substitute for « », which were not widely available in metal type when quotation marks were introduced from France.

“ ”

1. Encloses a quotation in some languages.

   John said, “Run!”

   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:“ ”.

In many countries, quotation marks are not standardized, with different publishers making different choices. Even where there is a standard, however, and that is something other than ⟨“ ”⟩, ⟨“ ”⟩ have been introduced with computers, as most word-processing software and keyboards follow English-language preferences. In many cases ⟨“ ”⟩ have become more commonly used than the traditional convention. This most commonly affects the positions and orientations of apostrophes and turned commas used as quotation marks, rather than guillemets.

• Quotation mark on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

“ ”

1. Encloses a quotation, title, ironic comment (scare quotes), nickname, gloss, or the mention of a word

For simple quotations, ⟨“ ”⟩ are used in the United States while ⟨‘ ’⟩ are used in Britain. With nested quotations, American usage is ⟨“ ”⟩ for the outer set of marks and ⟨‘ ’⟩ for the inner (embedded) quotation or mention, while British usage tends to be the opposite, though there is variation in British usage. Regardless, usage switches back and forth between single and double quotation marks if there is further embedding.

With multi-paragraph quotations, the opening mark is used for each paragraph, but the closing mark only for the final paragraph.

Words, titles and sometimes quoted passages may be set in italic typeface rather than set off with quotation marks.

“ ”

1. (Mainland China, horizontal writing) Encloses a quotation.

With vertical text, ⟨『 』⟩ is used. In Taiwan, ⟨「 」⟩ is used for both vertical and horizontal text.

“ ”

1. Encloses an embedded (inner) quotation.

An embbed (inner) quotation is enclosed with ⟨“ ”⟩, within ⟨« »⟩ for the outer quotation. This is the norm in France, but in Switzerland ⟨‹ ›⟩ are used for the embedded quotation. The languages of Switzerland use a common convention of ⟨« »⟩ for a simple or embedding quotation and ⟨‹ ›⟩ for an embedded quotation.

• (dated) ‟ ”

“ ”

1. (dated) Encloses an embedded (inner) quotation.

An embbed (inner) quotation was previously enclosed with ⟨“ ”⟩, within ⟨« »⟩. Single quotation marks are not used in Greek, due to the visual clash (and likely confusion) with the similar-looking diacritics with rough breathing.

“ ”

1. Encloses a quotation.

The languages of India, including Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu, follow the American-English convention of ⟨“ ”⟩ for a simple or embedding quotation and ⟨‘ ’⟩ for an embedded quotation.

“ ”

1. (Brazil) Encloses a quotation.
2. (Portugal) Encloses an embedded (inner) quotation.

• Brazil follows American usage of ⟨“ ”⟩ for a simple or outer quotation, and ⟨‘ ’⟩ for an embedded quotation. For lines of dialogue, the quotation dash ⟨―⟩ is preferred.
• Portugal follows French usage of ⟨« »⟩ for a simple or outer quotation, ⟨“ ”⟩ for an embedded quotation, and ⟨‘ ’⟩ for a doubly embedded quotation or mention.

“ ”

1. encloses an embedded (inner) quotation

An embbed (inner) quotation is enclosed with ⟨“ ”⟩, within ⟨« »⟩ for the outer quotation.