Facts about Quotation Marks
- 09
Quotation marks were completely absent from printed books before 1500, with scribes and early printers using marginal symbols or paragraph breaks to indicate direct speech instead.
- 08
German typewriters manufactured before 1950 positioned quotation marks as shift-accessible characters on the 2 and 8 keys respectively, requiring two keystrokes to produce a single paired set.
- 07
Japanese printers adopted quotation marks called kagikakko 「」 with corner bracket shapes during the Meiji Restoration in the 1870s to distinguish quoted passages in horizontally written texts.
- 06
Microsoft Word's smart quotes feature, introduced in 1983, automatically converts straight quotation marks to curved ones, causing persistent formatting problems when users need literal inch or foot symbols.
- 05
Nested quotation marks within dialogue required printers to alternate between double and single marks until 1960, when style guides standardized the practice across American publications.
- 04
Early typewriters in the 1870s lacked dedicated quotation mark keys, forcing typists to use apostrophes or improvised combinations to denote quoted text.
- 03
Single quotation marks became the standard in British English printing during the 19th century, while American publishers predominantly adopted double quotation marks as their default style.
- 02
In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg's printing press required different quotation mark designs for each language, making standardized punctuation marks one of typography's earliest internationalization challenges.
- 01
The French began using guillemets, angled quotation marks pointing outward like « », in the 16th century, distinguishing them from English straight quotation marks.