In France, by the end of the nineteenth century, the marks were modified to an angular shape: «…». īlank space (in yellow) provoked by elevated quotation marks some type designers consider this excessive. The usage of a pair of marks, opening and closing, at the level of lower case letters was generalized. In most other languages, including English, the marginal marks dropped out of use in the last years of the eighteenth century. During the seventeenth century this treatment became specific to quoted material, and it grew common, especially in Britain, to print quotation marks (now in the modern opening and closing forms) at the beginning and end of the quotation as well as in the margin the French usage (see under Specific language features below) is a remnant of this. After the publication of Filelfo's edition, the quotation marks for literal quotations prevailed. Non-verbal loans were marked on the edge. Until then, literal quotations had been highlighted or not at the author's discretion. In his edition of the works of Aristotle, which appeared in 1483 or 1484, the Milanese Renaissance humanist Francesco Filelfo marked literal and appropriate quotes with oblique double dashes on the left margin of each line. The double quotation mark derives from a marginal notation used in fifteenth-century manuscript annotations to indicate a passage of particular importance (not necessarily a quotation) the notation was placed in the outside margin of the page and was repeated alongside each line of the passage.

Our copyists place this sign in the books of the people of the Church, to separate or to indicate the quotations drawn from the Holy Scriptures. Hanc scriptores nostri adponunt in libris ecclesiasticorum virorum ad separanda vel demonstranda testimonia sanctarum Scripturarum. Isidore of Seville, in his seventh century encyclopedia, Etymologiae, described their use of the Greek diplé (a chevron): The single quotation mark is traced to Ancient Greek practice, adopted and adapted by monastic copyists. Quotation marks have a variety of forms in different languages and in different media. The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which may or may not be the same character. Quotation marks (also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks ) are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase.

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