Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and I’ve been so busy studying for college finals that I’ve almost forgotten to think about grammar. [buzzer] Actually, I’m always thinking about grammar. And this week, I’ve been thinking about misused quotation marks. There’s a meme floating around on the internet that says “Employees must WASH HANDS” with the “wash hands” bit in quotes. What the original author presumably tried to do was use quotation marks for emphasis, but that’s a mistake. Quotation marks are used for – you guessed it - quotations. And to be clear, when I say quotation marks, I mean double quote marks – that is, the one that looks like two apostrophes. If you’re quoting inside a quote, you should use single quotation marks. Unless you’re British, in which case, you should swap that rule. But whether you’re British or American, never use quotation marks for emphasis.
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