Quotes inside Quotes [closed]

I've always been taught quotes should go together as in the following example:

“I’ll take that as a 'yes,'” he says.

However, it sometimes seems to read and flow better as follows:

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” he says.

Which is correct?

Solution 1:

The most common style in U.S. publishing is the one endorsed by The Chicago Manual of Style, sixteenth edition (2010):

6.11 Single quotation marks next to double quotation marks. When single quotation marks nested within double quotation marks appear next to each other, no space need be added between the two except as a typographical nicety subject to the publisher's requirements. ... In the example that follows, note that the period precedes the single quotation mark [cross reference omitted].

"Admit it," she said. "You haven't read 'The Simple Art of Murder.'"

The most common style in British publishing is the one endorsed by The Oxford Guide to Style (2002):

5.13.1 Names and titles

...

In these [previous] examples the quotation marks are used merely to hold up a word for inspection, as if by tongs, providing a cordon sanitaire between the word and the writer's finer sensibilities. ('You may wish to avert your eyes, gentle reader, whilst I unveil the word "boogie-woogie".')

Note that in British (Oxford) style the primary quotation mark is a single mark (') and the secondary quotation mark is a double mark ("), whereas in U.S. (Chicago) style the reverse is true.

If you are free to make your own style decisions, you can adopt the logically superior British style of positioning quotation marks "according to the sense," as Oxford puts it. But if you are dealing with a U.S. publisher, don't be surprised if someone somewhere along the line imposes the normal U.S. style, which is (again as Oxford puts it) to set "commas and full points ... inside the closing quotation mark regardless of whether they are part of the quoted material."