Quote:
Originally Posted by firebug
To be fair, in North America double quotes (") are used to signify verbatim text and single quotes (') do not imply verbatim but can used to signify a summary or when a word is used out of it's usual context. In verbal conversation, the use of 'air-quotes' frequently correlates to a single quote in text.
My understanding is that in England single quotes are used to designate a verbatim phrase.
From wikipedia: "To avoid the potential for confusion between ironic quotes and direct quotations, some style guides specify single quotation marks for this usage, and double quotation marks for verbatim speech. Quotes indicating irony, or other special use, are sometimes called scare, sneer, shock, distance, or horror quotes. They are sometimes gestured in oral speech using air quotes." |
Generally good points. What you'll notice from the wikipedia article is that either are acceptable, and the frequency of one over the other appears regional.
However, I would caution that the excerpt from Wikipedia relates to irony. In other words, if the word is meant to be interpreted with irony in mind, it is placed in single quotes. If we apply the style guide you've noted to nage's post, then we would accept his use of the word manipulated as irony. I sincerely doubt that was the poster's intention. In fact, I'm sure.
Anyways, nage made it clear that he paraphrased his findings from the report. According to the same wiki page, it is inappropriate to use quotation marks around a paraphrased idea:
"This is because a paraphrase is not a direct quote, and in the course of any composition, it is important to document when one is using a quotation versus when one is using a paraphrased idea."
Of course all of this is tangential to the (stunted) discussion at hand. I apologize for the digression.