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Originally Posted by tspikes51
tspike51's Guide to Properly Using Quotation Marks (") and Single Quotation Marks (')
Single quotation marks can NEVER be used alone or outside of a set of quotation marks. That's all there is to it. Here are a few examples:
Correct: He said "So he asks 'do you love me?' and he says 'no, but that's a nice ski mask you're wearing!'."
Incorrect: The so called 'drug' school.
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I do this 'all' the time, and at tspike's post, I got to worrying.
Turns out it's just another one of those endearing US/English things. Or, in some cases, if a particular word is meant to be highlighted in order to indicate a special usage or meaning, as for example in,
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The so called 'drug' school.
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then single quotation marks are the
preferred type.
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However, even those British writers who follow the American convention of using the double quotation mark as the standard for simple quotation will usually revert to the British style of using single quotation marks when setting off words as words.
e.g.
Mark that spot with an 'X'.
Please explain exactly what you mean by 'conventions'.
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Phew, panic over!