When we were taught typing, back in medieval times, one always allowed two spaces after terminal punctuation.
:eek:
Duoble quotes are often used where italics, underlining or bold is not available.
Just for what it’s worth, even the American edition of Eats, Leaves, & Shoots is practically worthless for American style. Truss simply doesn’t know enough to make intelligent comments on the subject.
There are many specialized styles for particular professions. Law has the weirdest style guides I’ve ever seen.
But for the worst of all worlds, try this one: For one book I did I was told to use the Chicago Manual of Style and I was given a page of exceptions to Chicago style that I had to follow.
(What did I do? The obvious. I looked at the exception page and let the copyeditor sort out the rest. )
The number one rule of style is that there are very few hard and fast rules of style.
Your best bet is to pick an American convention that works for you (and there are several) and run with it until you have a reason to do otherwise.
Outside of quotes-within-quotes, I generally use single quotes for sarcasm or irony. And I don’t care what the rest of you ‘experts’ have to say about it.
For the record, my AP Style Guide (2002 edition) says to use double quotes to indicate irony. It doesn’t mention single quotes at all outside of quotes-within-quotes.
Have we had any discussion of what these things are properly called? To my knowledge, the thing people here are calling “double-quotes” is really called a “quotation mark.” The “single quote” I learned in the olden days as an “apostrophe.” The backwards-slanted apostrophe in computer parlance is called a backtick, but I’m not aware of any non-computer use for this character. Computer types used it I think because
Any objections to this from right-pondians? Since y’all use them differently, maybe we should internationalize the terms and call them “foot marks” and “inches marks”! 
…because they weren’t already used for anything else.
I know of no such rule in American usage.
Two spaces after a period is the style for fixed-width type only (like on an old typewriter). If you’re using a proportionally spaced typeface (which is likely if you’re using a modern word processor, the rule is one space. The software automatically works out how much space to put in.
If by “backtick” you mean that character under the tilde – then to me it is not a quotation mark. It is an accent grave and is not used in English. In American typography, the single quote (the straight/noncurly/dumb quote) was made with only one character, both for opening and closing (the key between the semicolon and the return carriage). Typsetter’s quotations marks (curly/smart quote) is possible in American typography only with word processors, not with traditional typewriters and does not make use of the tilde key, except in certain specialized software for professional publishers (now out of date).
Well, I blew the dust off my Little, Brown Handbook the other day and it’s still at hand, let’s see what it says. Oh, yeah, the formalities: Fowler, H. Ramsey & Aaron, Jane E., _The_Little,Brown_Handbook, 4th Edition (1989), Little, Brown and Company. Chapter 24, “Quotation Marks”
Hmm, according to these two, the apostrophe is not the same as a single quotation mark. Here’s the rules they lay out, with some of my commentary.
a. Use double quotation marks to enclose direct quotations.
b. Use single quotation marks to enclose a quotation within a quotation
c. Set off quotations of dialogue, poetry, and long prose passages according to standard practice.
This one probably needs more fleshing out.
In dialogue, you’re reminded to begin a new paragraph for each speaker, and to omit quotation marks at the end of a paragraph of dialogue when the next paragraph is also dialogue from the same speaker.
In poetry, quotation marks are only required for quoting one line of poetry, which is quoted within the running text. They are optional when quoting two or three lines, and never used when quoting more than three lines. Instead, specialized formatting is used.
In long prose passages, do not use quotation marks. Instead, specialized formatting is used.
d. Put quotation marks around titles according to standard practice.
Not -your- title, silly, when you’re -quoting- a title.
e. Occasionally, quotation marks may be used to enclose defined words and words used in a “special” sense.
Those quotes around “special” are mine. In definitions, the use of italics or underlining is more common than quotation marks.
f. Avoid using quotation marks where they are not needed.
Avoid quotation marks around common nicknames. Don’t refer to someone as James “Jim” DeGriz. Just Jim is fine. Don’t put quotation marks around slang terms or trite expressions, even if you want to. Don’t use quotation marks around technical terms unless you’re defining 'em on the spot.
g. Place other marks of punctuation inside or outside quotation marks according to standard practice.
Standard practice on this one is a bit iffy. The times, they are a changin’, and a lot of people - such as myself - prefer to place punctuation in its logical position with respect to quotation marks. This ain’t the subject at hand, though, so I’ll step lightly past it.
And that’s it. According to LBH, single quotation marks are -only- used when placing a quote within another. I can’t say I’ve adhered to that rule perfectly, but it seems reasonable enough.