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In defense of Jo, I was also taught that quotes and inverted commas were the same thing and that the terms were interchangeable. My problem is that I cannot remember what I used to call the single quote. As a printer, I must have used some descriptive term, but only single quote comes to mind. Perhaps the use of both "single quote" and "apostrophe" is acceptable depending on context - ie where it is being used for a contraction or to denote possession it's called an apostrophe, but if it's being used to deliniate a quoted passage it's called a single quote. Would this seem a reasonable approach? 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Capital Kiwi asked Would this seem a reasonable approach?
Eminently, IMHO. Your diplomatic approach, coupled with your city of residence, prompted a question for the rest of the Board members. Here in NZ, the registration plates of vehicles attached to embassies begin with DC - Diplomatic Corps. I had always thought that the international standard was to use CD - Corps Diplomatique. Is NZ alone in abandoning this pretentious use of French, or am I, once again, lycanthropically barking up the wrong tree?
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I, once again, lycanthropically barking up the wrong tree
A wolf in sheep's clothing! I might have guessed! Ow-ooo!
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No, no, it's a sheep in wolf's clothing we have in Max. Can answer this one (since I used to work for the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and asked the same question). When it was decided to standardise dip. corps plates, it was too late to use "CD", since it was already being used by up to 10,000 NZers. "DC" was the next best thing which was available. Simple as that, really. This is not exactly a showstopper in any way shape or form. The real danger lies in(side) cars with "CR" plates ... 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Capital Kiwi suggested that The real danger lies in(side) cars with "CR" plates No argument there, though it is a cool little icon, better than a boring alphanumeric combination. Thanks for the explanation on DC by the way, we seem to have a surprising number come up this way, popping in to catch up with Terence O'Brien perhaps. Either that, or to get blotto on HB wine and laugh at PC plod when he tries to nick them.
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Pooh-Bah
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>Perhaps the use of both "single quote" and "apostrophe" ...
“a” ‘a’ a’ a'
I got the fist three variations shown above by using MS Word (it adjusted the marks in automatically, based on context) and the last by typing directly in this software. I would have thought that in a proper printing font the ‘ and ’ would be different but before word processors replaced typewriters the ' and ' would have come from the same key stroke on the keyboard as the apostrophe.
By the way, just to add more complication - my father calls them "lip marks"!
Foot Note: Mmmmm - That lost a little in translation, the edit post screen allows in " and " to be different when copied in from Word but it all gets "smoothed out" back to looking the same at the preview stage - I give up!
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Pooh-Bah
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Someone, way back there, asked "When did quotes become inverted commas?" Well they never did - the question is when did "inverted commas" ( which I am almost certain is a typographers phrase, back in the old, cold-lead days of printing) become "quotes?" I don't know the date, but in my youth - last century, not the one before! - the term "inverted commas" began to be supplanted by "quotation marks," a phrase which became more and more usual and, inevitably, became shortened to "quotes." Jo is quite right in supposing that the initial and terminal marks were different - mirror images of each other, in fact. Limited space on a typewriter put paid to that and a unified, all-purpose quotation mark was accepted. Indeed, it could well be that it was the typewritten version - patently not a "comma" of any sort, but just a short, superscripted line - gave rise to the expression. That's just a guess, based on my vast knowedge and backed by my vaster intellect, and offered in all modesty 
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Yes, Rhu, that sounds right--
I also find that old folk, like me, who learned touch typing back in typewriting days, think and use the keyboard different than youngsters--like my kids--
While my daughter full well knows that sentences end in a period-- she uses the keyboard "dot" (so she has a dot key, which she uses to create a period.)
I read .com, .org as dot com, dot org, and will express DOS commands as dot and double dot : but i use the period key and the colon key to make my dots..
How did quote marks look different in before mechacal printing presses? did an inverted comma, or pair of inverted comma's come to be used for some other notation? and then did hand writing follow this new style (maybe it was easier, or clearer?)
It's just some technology words are very old-- cams and cogs and even clutches where used in water mills, punch cards in looms.. I seen some text and articles about alphabets, and how the shapes of letters have changed, but never anything on the finer detail of punctuation marks.
Presumably, latin used fewer-- since work ending helped to fix meaning.. (but i am just guessing..no real knowledge of latin.)
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of troy asks how Latin used punctuation marks
I think that in general they didn't use punctuation marks, at least not during the empire and before.
As for the quote marks the open quotes looked like little 6s and close quotes looked like little 9s. You'll still see some like that in some typefaces in modern printing.
Did I get that right?
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Pooh-Bah
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>As for the quote marks the open quotes looked like little 6s and close quotes looked like little 9s. You'll still see some like that in some typefaces in modern printing.
Did I get that right?
Yep - exactly what I was trying to say - even sans serif fonts like Arial have them, although they are more pronounced in serif fonts.
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