A few years ago while copy editing an article, I was shocked to see something like this: “I lecture my sales staff about what I call ‘me syndrome,’” Jones said. What shocked me was the punctuation.

What are news readers to make of quotation marks in an article or headline? It seems a simple question, but this punctuation occasionally causes a misimpression. The issue arose recently after The ...

I love it whenever I see it: “‘Free Pickup and Delivery,’” “‘Fresh Fish’” and the like. I refer to signage on which quotation marks are used to indicate neither quotation nor irony but just upbeat ...