Q:John Marshall Law School professor Mark E. Wojcik sent the following comment and a question: “This year I am seeing documents in which both double quotation marks (“ “) and single, internal quotation marks (‘ ') are used for entire quotations. I've also seen court decisions using this format. Worse, there appears to be a space added between the double and single quotes. Is this something to be concerned about, or just ignore? My concern is that some reader may find the additional quotes distracting.”

A: Readers who pay attention to punctuation errors may notice and be irritated by the extra and unnecessary quotation marks. But most readers will probably not be distracted, because readers typically focus on subject matter, not punctuation. In fact, perhaps the drafter added the space between the two sets of quotes out of concern that otherwise the internal set of quotes might not be noticed.

Professor Wojcik sent the following citations of the current improper punctuation in Zippo Mfg., Inc. V. Zippo Dot Com, Inc., 951 F.Supp. 1119, 1127:

And the following ungrammatical quotation, from Pavlik v. Kornhaber, 326 Ill.App.3d 744, contained two sets of double quotes, along with one set of single quotes (in a quoted passage in Schiller v. Mitchell, 828 N.E. 2d 323, Ill.App. 2 Dist. 2005):

The general rule is: When quotations are indented and single‑spaced, there should be no quotation marks at the beginning and end of the quotation, and double‑quotes should surround internal quotations.

Professor Wojcik also included the correct punctuation of a quotation that is part of the text (from the second edition of the ALWD manual, pages 320‑21): “[The FAA] typically precludes appellate review of orders allowing arbitration ‘until after the arbitration process has gone forward.'”

Q: What would you call that gadget next to your computer, if you had two of them?

A:The reader who sent this question asked not to be identified because she feared her question would seem stupid. She need not have worried, for the question has also stumped me and some of my colleagues. So I called our computer experts and asked them what they call the plural of mouse. Believing that safety exists in numbers, they held a brainwashing session and answered, “mice.”

Now, the questioner has sent an item by linguist Alan Kaye (in the current issue of “English Today”) in which Kaye takes issue with Steven Pinker, author of Words and Rules, (1999). Pinker states that most English speakers either avoid using the plural of computer mouse or reluctantly prefer mice to mouses.

But Kaye believes that mouses is really the choice of most computer users because on a survey of more than 1,000 students at California State University at Fullerton where he teaches, he found that about 90 percent opted for mouses. Whether the choice of college students nationally would be the same as the choice of Kaye's students is debatable.

Kaye also bases his choice of mouses on the fact that two persons dressed as Mickey Mouse on Halloween would be called Mickey Mouses,” not Mickey Mice, and that two individuals who are foolish would be called silly gooses, not silly geese. Furthermore, when the Walkman debuted, stores advertised that they had Walkmans, not Walkmen, on hand.

Whether we agree with Mr. Kaye's assertion or not, most of us would not be inclined to use any of these plurals – nor would we have much opportunity. And despite Mr. Kaye's logic, in a search of Lexis‑Nexus database newspaper articles, the phrase computer mice gets about six times as many results as computer mouses. A Google search also indicated a preference for mice. Most people seem to prefer a word that sounds familiar and that they are accustomed to using, and they will choose that word instead of a word that seems strange.

The best answer to the original question is probably that you should use the term you prefer and allow general usage to decide the outcome–as it always does anyway.

Attorney Don Reynolds, a self‑described “vigorously retired patent lawyer,” discovered an error in the February “Language Tips.” Nobody else has commented on it, but he was right; there it was, an apostrophe in the plural word “speakers.” In the last paragraph of my answer to the first question I wrote, “Another fact about language that the reader's question reveals is that language means not only what the speaker's (emphasis added) intended it to mean, but what the listener understands it to mean based on the listener's experience.” I intended to use the singular speaker, but somehow the ‘ s sneaked in (or “snuck” in, using current parlance).

Attorney Reynolds added that during a yoga class, his instructor told him several times to “lay down.” (The instructor was wrong: lie is correct.) And, in a news clipping he saw, “As the witness was leaving the courtroom, a spectator lay a hand on her shoulder.” (Wrong: laid is correct)

Both ungrammatical usages are common. How often have you been told in physicians' and dentists' offices to “lay back”? The verb tenses (lie, lay, lain) have almost disappeared from English. Properly used, lie is an intransitive verb: I lie down (present tense); I lay down yesterday (past tense); I have lain down every afternoon (perfect tense). The transitive verb lay, laid, laid is ungrammatically substituted. The verb lay must have an object: I am laying my books on the table (present tense); I laid my books on the table yesterday (past tense); I have always laid my books there (perfect tense). But if you learned the difference between the two verbs, you are probably over age 50.

Unlike other losses English has undergone, the distinction between the verbs lie and lay will probably not be missed – or even noticed, except by those of us who have had it drilled into our minds by English teachers who have, by now, passed on to their reward.