Quote Unquote

This is the geek in me coming out, and on no level do I think that this is deeply significant, but ...

... it's interesting how the different versions of my books have different quote/unquote marks to indicate speech! (I told you it was geeky.) Take Questors, for example. The British version uses single quotations marks. The American version uses double quotation marks. The German version (Questors - Die Weltenretter) uses double arrows, and the Czech version (Patraci) uses double close quotes at the bottom of the line to open a speech and double open quotes at the top of the line to close it. I haven't seen the Russian or Spanish translation yet, and there isn't a French one. But in the French version of Ely Plot and Fen Gold,* there's just a dash at the beginning of a speech.

'Breakfast!'

"Breakfast!"

>>Fruhstuck!<<

Snidane!"
"

- Dejeuner!

(The fonts available on Blogger don't include umlauts or accents or moving punctuation around vertically or curved quote marks, so you'll just have to picture them in your mind. But if anyone asks, "What are you doing?" it's probably better not to reply, "I'm imagining curvy quotation marks." Not if you have any pretensions to coolness. Or even mild-to-moderate sanity.)

Next week I'm off on the marathon that is the Northern Children's Book Festival, so wish me stamina.

Cheers, Joan.

* Le roi et l'orphelin and Le tresor viking in Les Mysteres de la Gargouille. Impossible to say (even with my school girl French) without sounding luscious!