Precise Punctuation

Forget about writing about the correct placement of apostrophes. Everybody does that. I'm sure if I plug a find command in the search box with the word "apostrophe" into my body of postings, I'll get a return of more than one posting. Everybody writes about apostrophes.

But what about quotation marks? I think they can be more bedeviling than apostrophes. It's just that the complex examples of them don't come up that often. But when they do, the punctuation is a work of precision placement by the writer or copywriter. In its own way, it is art.

Let's start with the simple quote, one sentence or many, it's the same. Anthony Geary, an actor principally known for his role as Luke on the daytime soap opera "General Hospital" is quoted as saying of his character: 

"He was a grab bag of emotions and directions, a minor icon of anti-heroism in the '80s and in many ways represented a lot of what was bad with the decade."

I learned how to punctuate that kind of simple quote before the 5th grade at P.S. 22 in Flushing.

I didn't learn about the double, imbedded quote until sometime in high school, when I realized what I was seeing in the newspaper.

Let's say that in part of the obituary we have the writer who tells us what someone said of Mr. Geary. It would go something like this. 

Mr. Geary's longtime co-star on "General Hospital", Genie Francis tells us: "Anthony was a cerebral  actor who would tell you his character Luke, 'was a grab bag of emotions and directions, a minor icon of anti-heroism in the '80s and in many ways represented a lot of what was bad with the decade.'"   

Look carefully. The double stroke quote marks encapsulate the entire narrative, which is Genie Francis telling us a description of Anthony and then adding what Anthony Geary himself said of his character Luke. Mr. Geary's remarks are enclosed in single stroke quotes, and since his quote closes the narrative, the single stroke mark is before the closing double stroke mark. That's fairly advanced stuff, but not too hard to understand.

What is confounding is the triple quote, a need to embed a quote within a quote,  I don't think I was aware of how to punctuate that one until my mid-60s.

The New York Times obit writer, Sopan Deb, navigates these rapids flawlessly when he tells us what Mr. Geary said of a disappointment in not getting a desired film role:

"It was hurtful at the time, but I understand that if you're doing a big film, for the five seconds or less that someone goes, 'Isn't that that guy on "General Hospital"?'—they're out of the movie."

Notice that "General Hospital" in within double stroke quotes, and ends with the necessary question mark that is then followed by the single stroke quote to denote what Mr. Geary is imagining what an audience member might be saying upon seeing him in a big time movie. He didn't get the part because he was too closely identified with "General Hospital" and that he would be considered a distraction in the movie.

Write about Presidents' Day all you want. You're nobody until you master triple quote punctuation.

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