TYPICAL ERROR The defence lawyer smiled as she started her cross-examination. 'Mr Thomson, yesterday you said that the getaway car was a Camry, yet a moment ago you said, and I quote, 'It was so dark that night, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.' How then could you tell that the car was a Camry?'
CORRECTION The defence lawyer smiled as she started her cross-examination. 'Mr Thomson, yesterday you said that the getaway car was a Camry, yet a moment ago you said, and I quote, "It was so dark that night, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face." How then could you tell that the car was a Camry?'
EXPLANATION Sometimes we have situations where two sets of inverted commas need to be used at the same time, with one set inside the other. So that the reader can distinguish the two sets, we use single inverted commas for one and double inverted commas for the other.
It does not matter whether we make the outer set double and the inner set single or the outer set single and the inner set double; what is important is that we should adopt one style for quotations and use it consistently and use the other for quotations within quotations.