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British vs American quote marks for dialogue - single or double?

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3.9K views 25 replies 24 participants last post by  antares  
J
#1 ·
A e-book formatting question:

From what I can tell from print and e-books published on both sides of the pond, the convention (standard?) in the UK is to use single quote marks for dialogue (e.g. 'Hi,' said Bob.), while the US uses double quote marks (e.g. "Hey," replied Bill.).

Given that one generally produces only one version of an e-book, a few questions:

1. Does anyone actually notice which is being used? I've realised I don't notice, but prefer the look of single quote marks, possibly because that's what I'm more used to.

1. British authors: do you format using single or double quote marks, and does this depend on where you think you will be selling more books (e.g. using double quotes if you expect a bigger US readership)?

2. Non-UK and non-US authors: what's the convention in your country?

Thanks all!
 
#2 ·
Good question. My editor sent my MS back with all the 'singles' in red and substituted with doubles. I prefer the singles, looks cleaner, but I didn't have the heart to say no. How would you even change all that in one shot without doubling up all the apostrophes throughout your work?
 
J
#3 ·
Hi Geoff!

I currently use double quotes when drafting, so I can switch them all to single via find and replace if necessary. I started with single quotes at one point, then realised it wouldn't work it the opposite direction, as you point out.

What's the dialogue formatting used in Canada?
 
#6 ·
I'm in the UK and I always use double, that's the way we were taught in school and even now when I'm reading books with single quotes I think it's either a mistake or a literary quirk. It just doesn't look right to me, but that's maybe just a personal thing.
 
#7 ·
I use single quotes because I was taught to use them by an editor. Not that it matters now but I was told the reason for this was to save on space for print. It all had to do with cost.  It's not an issue now that books are in digital format. I guess ever since I was told this I've stuck with single quote marks.
 
#10 ·
Amanda Brice said:
I'm American, so obviously I use double. When I read a book using single, I assume the author/publisher is British and that it is set in the UK. It looks off to me,but I don't mind it because I've gotten used to reading it in British books.
Click to expand...
This. I'm an American, so I always use double quotes for dialogue. However, I think you should go with what you're most comfortable with using. I too am used to reading British, Australian, whatever books where dialogues are in single quotes, and it doesn't put me off at all. :)
 
S
#11 ·
Geoff North said:
How would you even change all that in one shot without doubling up all the apostrophes throughout your work?
Click to expand...
Assuming that apostrophes would always follow a letter or number, where double quotes wouldn't, you can perform a search and replace in Word:

Make sure the 'Use wildcards' checkbox is checked.

Find what: ([A-Za-z0-9])'
Replace with: \1@@@

Click on replace all. That should replace all the apostrophes with @@@, so you can then replace the single quotes with double quotes, then change all the @@@ back to single quotes.

There may be some situations where this won't work, such as if you place a word in a sentence in single quotes, like 'this' for example. In that case, the opening single quote will be converted to double, but the closing one won't.

It also won't catch apostrophes that start a word, such as '97.
 
#12 ·
Tricky one. Like others, I was taught double quotes at school before we Brits changed to single. I still use them and, indeed, prefer them. I've read European books where they get around the problem by using a dash:

The restaurant was full when the entered.
  - Has sir booked a table?
  - Yes. The name is Bouvier.
  - Come this way sir, madame.
The maître d' weaved his way through the packed tables.

And so on.  Took a bit of getting used to at first, but I got to like it.
 
#15 ·
I am in the UK and use double as I was taught, but I suspect I would have switched to single if not for the fact I read more books from the colonies (grin) than I read homegrown and so have been corrupted... I mean influenced by those authors. I DO spell everything the way i was taught though, and had some complaints from US readers at first. I fixed that with a little disclaimer page in all my books about it. No problem since.

I don't think Amazon do it any more, but way back they used to tag books the way they did CDs with the word Import next to the title. That was one way for readers to realise  what was going on, but as I say they don't do it anymore.
 
J
#16 ·
Thanks for input, all. So far, looks like noone has particularly strong objections to either formatting, so will carry on with double quotes for now. (Double quotes was what I learnt at school too!)

Plus, especially after the '2 Stars for being British' http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,172662.0.html thread, perhaps going with US quote marks style (although spelling with still be British!) may be the way forward ;)
 
5
#20 ·
I think this is probably the only thing I actually have a solid opinion on when it comes to formatting. The average American reader will think you're illiterate if you use single quotes for dialog or commas for decimals points. I'm not even kidding.  This is not something that's remotely touched on.  It's so off the American radar, they would simply make an assumption and think you have no clue.  So if you're selling to a largely American audience, I'd use the double for dialog and the period for a decimal point, regardless of what your personal opinion of them is.
 
C
#21 ·
I use UK spelling, but I also use double quotation marks, because single quotation marks just look wrong to me. Besides, German uses double quotation marks as well, only that the opening quotation mark is on the bottom of the line. I would demonstrate, but the board software does not like HTML character entities

I actually do use the bottom line quotation marks for my German translations (which is annoying to format), though I always use upper double quotes otherwise.

In general, I think the most important thing is to be consistent. I've read books with double quotation marks, single quotation marks and dashes and I never much cared as long as the punctuation was consistent.



 
#25 ·
nomesque said:
As an Aussie: double quotes. I'm not sure if that's standard in our publishing industry or not... which tells me that I rarely notice either way. But double quotes seems right, dammit! :D
Click to expand...
Single is standard in Australia.

I used to use single, but started using double because it's a heck of a lot easier to change from double to single than the other way around. And no one really cares.
 
A
#26 ·
Lyndawrites said:
Tricky one. Like others, I was taught double quotes at school before we Brits changed to single. I still use them and, indeed, prefer them. I've read European books where they get around the problem by using a dash:

The restaurant was full when the entered.
- Has sir booked a table?
- Yes. The name is Bouvier.
- Come this way sir, madame.
The ma�tre d' weaved his way through the packed tables.

And so on. Took a bit of getting used to at first, but I got to like it.
Click to expand...
Portuguese uses the dash to denote conversation, so I'm accustomed to it.

As for single versus double quote marks, I grew up using double but single causes me no problems. Given that double quotes require a key shift, I think singles are faster for writers.
 
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