Quotation marks have a hierarchy, grammar expert June Casagrande notes, and she advises how to put single quotes in their place.

A few years ago while copy editing an article, I was shocked to see something like this: “I lecture my sales staff about what I call ‘me syndrome,’” Jones said. What shocked me was the punctuation.

This is the Grammar Guy column, a weekly feature written by Curtis Honeycutt. I can think of a few things off the top of my head that I hope never to use: math, a fire extinguisher, Pepto Bismol and ...

I can think of a few things off the top of my head that I hope never to use: math, a fire extinguisher, Pepto Bismol, and the flotation device on the bottom of my seat cushion on an airplane. In ...