Like a lot of people, I’m often amused by unnecessary quotation marks in signs. It has even crossed my mind that it would be fun to collect photos of them. But this is the Internet age, an era whose motto is, “If you’ve ever thought of it, someone online is doing it.” So I was delighted, but not surprised, to come across UnnecessaryQuotes.com, a blog that bills itself as a “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks.
It’s a place where you can enjoy photos of real signs such as: Please “No” Men Inside Ladies Room, “Bikes” Not Allowed Beyond This Point, and “Buy” One T-shirt 2nd One Free.
While these are funny, they’re more than just an opportunity to giggle at others’ mistakes. These amusing boo-boos and countless others on the blog and throughout the world are a learning opportunity. After all, even those of us who know enough about it to laugh at such mistakes may not know all the guidelines for using quotation marks. So here’s a quick primer to help assure that none of the signs you post on the office microwave end up getting laughed at on the Internet.
The quotation mark’s main job is to designate a direct verbatim quotation, be it spoken or written, real or fiction. The president said, “Good evening, my fellow Americans.” The quotation can be just part of a sentence: The president called our situation “a great challenge” Tuesday.
As illustrated in my examples above: Single quotation marks denote a quotation within another quotation. If you want to put a quotation within a quotation within a third quotation? Then alternate regular quotation marks with single quotation marks: “Bob told Mary, ‘Please say “yes.”’” There’s a reason you don’t see this often. It lends itself to a messy page and reader confusion. So try to avoid nesting too many quotes within one another.
