If you are someone who feels strongly that writers should use the noun quotation in formal prose, rather than the newer noun quote, should you be feeling concerned about this? If you are someone who never thinks about (or even notices) whether writers use the noun quotation versus the noun quote, should you be thinking more about this?
I have thought about this specific (and now arguably esoteric) usage question in two different roles: (a) as a copy editor, who co-edited an academic journal for nine years; and (b) as a linguist, who is queried about changes in usage.
Being the highly detail-oriented (read: compulsive) copy editor I am, I faced the decision of whether to change the author’s use of quote to quotation in numerous articles for the journal. While I use the noun quote often, in both speech and writing, I know there are folks out there who don’t like it. So, do I risk that some readers will think the journal has a sloppy copy editor who didn’t catch this “mistake” of using quote as a noun, or do I cater to the readers who have not yet accepted this change in the language and put in quotation?
Can I quote you on that?
If you look up the word quote in the fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2002), you will find the following usage note:
“People have been using the noun quote as a truncation of quotation for over 100 years, and its use in less formal contexts is widespread today. Language critics have objected to this usage, however, as unduly journalistic or breezy. As such, it is best avoided in more formal situations. The Usage Panel, at least, shows more tolerance for the word as the informality of the situation increases. Thus, only 38 percent of panelists accept the example He began the chapter with a quote from the Bible, but the percentage rises to 53 percent when the source of the quotation is less serious: He lightened up his talk by throwing in quotes from Marx Brothers movies.”
According to the Usage Panel, therefore, I should change it—or, at least, according to the Usage Panel as surveyed before 2002.
Decision time
In 2005 I was asked to join the Usage Panel, and now I am surveyed along with the other 200 or so members about such usage questions—including, in 2009, the issue of quote versus quotation. I thus had the power to sway the vote that might dictate other copy editors’ decisions about whether to change quote to quotation.
How, then, do I make the call when American Heritage sends me a survey with questions about changes in usage, such as whether to accept the sentence, “He began the chapter with a quote from the Bible.” I have my personal experience to work with: I have been known to use the noun quote, and I encounter it in contexts from informal speech to academic writing. But all of that feels a bit anecdotal.
So I turn to online linguistic corpora (electronic databases), such as the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), to see what a range of writers and speakers are doing with the language. A quick search of COCA using phrases such as “a quote/quotation” and “the quote(s)/quotation(s)” reveals the noun quote is over four times more frequent than the noun quotation overall, including spoken language, fiction, magazines, newspapers, and academic prose. When I isolate academic prose, I find the noun quote looks healthy there: 76 uses of “a quotation” and 74 uses of “a quote.” (There is one instance of “a quote” to refer to the price of a stock or commodity, which is not included in the count.)
Searches of the Corpus of Historical American English and of the Google Books Ngram Viewer show the use of phrases such as “a quote” gaining traction in the 1950s and taking off in the 1970s in written American English.
The vote is in
Given this information, we could and should ask: Isn’t it time for the Usage Panel, which serves as a gatekeeper when it comes to the acceptance of changes in the language, to accept this now-common usage and allow writers and speakers to use the noun quote—which isn’t even all that new (the Oxford English Dictionary has citations back to 1888)—without fear of judgment, even in formal prose? My answer, which probably is not a surprise to you at this point in the column: Yes. I voted “acceptable” for all sentences using quote as a noun.
It turns out that I was not alone. When the fifth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language came out in 2011, the usage note on quote was updated: In the 2009 survey, 80 percent of the Usage Panel voted “acceptable” for both the sentence with a quote from the Bible and the sentence with quotes from Marx Brothers movies. (Only 60 percent accepted quote used to mean “a saying or dictum.”)
So if you’re a quote rather than a quotation user, the Usage Panel now has your back. And you can quote me on that.
Oneil Banks - 1952 & 1957
How about “in quotes” vs. “in quotation marks”?
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RICHARD Hawley - AB \'52, JD \'56
I use both, but mostly the word \”quotation,\” when writing. The word \”quote,\” mostly while speaking. It seems to me both are correct, but quotation more formal.
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Darren Fonseca - 1987
Why bother having two words if we are just going to allow the meanings to converge? We will lose the ability to be clear in the conveyance of thought if we continue to allow our language to be dumbed down. I am disappointed in the usage panel.
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Bill Leaf - 1964
This applies to an earlier column from Dr. Curzan, an analysis of something like, “In the middle of the new kitchen floor sat a pile of boxes still unpacked.” The discussion missed a critical point. When we process language, especially about the physical world, we match it against our understanding of that world. The reason we process the sentence to mean the boxes are still packed and in need of unpacking is that, in moving, one has empty boxes at the origin, fills them, transports them to the destination, and unpacks them. So the sentence is literally wrong and the speaker sloppy, but we “get” the correct or intended meaning. Or we fill in words, e.g., “In the middle of the new kitchen floor sat a pile of boxes still [to be] unpacked.” Contrast this with “In the middle of our old kitchen floor sat a pile of boxes still unpacked.” There the clear meaning is the boxes are empty and we still have a lot of work to do.
Compare this with the common, lazily shortened, “I could care less.” The true intent is the opposite of what’s literally stated (Actually, the meaning of what’s stated is really vague.), but most listeners understand the intent without a hiccup.
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Jason Michalek - 2007, 2012
My colloquial perception of the difference between these words aligns with a matter that Oneil Banks raised. From my language exposure, I feel that the use of ‘quotations’ would refer to a more formalized citation of a pre-existing text OR the collocation, ‘Quotation marks.’ While I do often hear (and use) the form ‘quotes’ to refer to the marks, I would expect the usage of ‘quotations’ to convey a more professional indexicality whereas ‘quotes’ could refer to something more trivial. In this differentiation, the phrasing of ‘[favorite/memorable/funny/etc.] quotes’ allows for the idea that the specific instance of quoting is not a prescripted act of conveying language external to the text, but rather a descriptive representation of other ideas encased in an understood form.
This doesn’t necessarily “dumb down” the indexicality of the words, but it at least distinguishes them from each other. Even more so, the functional shift of ‘quote’ could be seen as more of a DIvergence than a convergence in relation to ‘quotation.’ ‘Quotes’ could come to embody a new sensibility of borrowing ideas whereas ‘quotations’ may maintain a sense of tradition and respect.
This perception would need linguistic evidence. However, it demonstrates the value of embracing both forms.
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