Translingual

Alternative spellings

• “ (as opening quotation mark)
• ” (as closing quotation mark)
• ״ (as gershayim)

Symbol

"

1. An ASCII symbol which covers the functions of both the opening and closing double quotation mark or double quote (“ and ”), and the Hebrew gershayim (״).

Quotation marks or inverted commas (informally referred to as quotes and speech marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, a phrase, or a word. They come as a pair of opening and closing marks in either of two styles: single (‘. . .’) or double (“. . .”).

Depending on the typeface, opening and closing quotation marks may be identical in form (called "vertical", "straight", or "typewriter" quotation marks), or they may be distinctly left-handed and right-handed ("typographic" or, colloquially, "curly" quotation marks). The closing single quotation mark is identical or similar in form to the apostrophe, and similar to the prime symbol. These three characters have quite different purposes, however. See also ditto mark.

Usage