What is the Difference Between Dumb Quotes and Smart (or Curly) Quotes?
Dumb quotes are punctuation marks that look the same whether they are opening or closing a quotation. They are straight quotation marks that resembled teardrops. Smart quotes that open a quotation or title appear as solid “66”’s, while closing smart quotes look like “99”’s. When the typewriter was still prevalent, straight quotes helped reduce the number of keys on the keyboard, and the computer keyboard followed suit. However, many prefer the look of smart quotes in printed text. Microsoft Word incorporated smart quotes by using a built-in function to automatically replace dumb quotes sent from the keyboard. The software can determine whether the instance calls for opening smart quotes or closing smart quotes.
