Single Quotes?
 

So I just started reading Lord of the Rings for 5th time the other day and I noticed something peculiar in the text, which for some reason never occurred to me before, single quotes! Tolkien uses single quotes, instead of double quotes for dialogue. I asked my wife who is a part-time editor about this, and she was perplexed. Can anyone provide any insight on this? Why did Tolkien use single quotes, instead of double quotes?

Thanks

I always assumed it was the British way of doing things.

well, as far as I recall, double quotes are used to represent somebody's account of another dialogue. But does it matter much? [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I too have noticed this odd detail and I don't know that it matters much. Typically, at least in the U.S., double quotes indicate a person is speaking while single quotes within a double quoted sentence means the speaker is quoting another person, i.e. "I went downtown and ran into Sharku who told me that 'Gandalf fell into a ditch'".

That is the correct way, but Tolkien does just the reverse. 'I went downtown and saw Sharku how told me "Gandalf fell into a ditch"'.

I have a suspicion that single quotes was the norm for most, if not all, literature of this time period not found in America. Mind, this is just a suspicion; I have no proof, really.

I'm not sure if it was entriely correct, but bear in mind that it may not have been Tolkien who used these, but his publishers or printing house!

I personally only ever use 'single quotes' and I write short stories, articles and am halfway through a book!

Airetauriel

I noticed that as well. At first it confused me, but then I let it go. One thing I noticed in the appendixes... if you read the foot notes at the bottom, Tolkien writes things such as, "I believe that Bilbo was referring to..." - almost as if he is writing onto paper what Bilbo once wrote - it would make sense to use single quotes if he was quoting someone else's work to begin with. It's just a theory, but who knows. He always talks about Bilbo writing these stories, maybe he wanted it to appear that way.
Any thoughts or opinions on this far-fetched theory?

I always thought it was to make it seem old-fashioned.

I've read books with either the double or single quotes, it's never really bothered me that Tolkien uses single quotes.

And hey, at least it HAS quotes. I once read a book that had none. Speech was written as a normal sentence, like:

How are you? asked Jane.
I'm great, replied Bob. How are you?

Drove me mad that book.

Hey Sindalómiel, (since your aussie and all) that book you talked about would'nt be "The True History of the Kelly Gang" by any chance? That book was SO annoying!!! It was meant to sound like Ned Kelly wroteit. the grammar was so bad and sometime it didn't even have full stops or commas!!!

No, it was called "Wrack". I had to read it for my HSC or I never would have. It was SOOO boring. Great plot, terrible writing style.

Per Tigerlily:
You're theory is actually right on the money. I've read a few other works that do something similar, but none are quite as good at it as Mr. Tolkien was.

What Tolkien was trying to do was make the reader believe that he had actually translated some of the key stories from the Red Book of Westermarch. It was another bit that made Middle-earth seem more real. (I loved his notes on translation!)

That being said, did Tolkien ever say where he'd gotten the Red Book from? Was it a family heirloom or did he just find it in an old library, (like James Gurney found "The Journal of Arthur and Will Denison", which he published as "Dinotopia")? (Note: I know these two really came up with the stories on their own, but it's fun to imagine!)

nay. In the french, or, rather, russion book the thing would look like this:

I went downtown and ran into Sharku.
- Gandalf dissapeared in Moria, - he told me, - yet I think he'll be back before the end of book 5.
- You think? - said I, - and the fall was so comlete.
And than we went to the pub.