Hello everyone!

I’m back with another confusing word pair. Today’s set falls into the category of errors that are made so commonly that most people don’t even realize they are prone to making those errors! That’s because the English-speaking world has largely started using quote as both noun and verb. We see a lot of both May I quote you? and The following quote from Mark Twain shows why he’s the best author ever. And since that’s become what’s known as “common usage,” it’s actually considered acceptable to use the word quote exclusively, and never quotation.

In more formal writing, however–and just as something that’s good to know so that you can make a conscious choice about what to use in your own writing, whatever level of formality–“correct usage” comes into play. The correct usage is that quote is the verb and quotation is the noun. So, May I quote you? is correct, but The following quote from Mark Twain… is incorrect. Instead, the correct phrase would be The following quotation from Mark Twain shows why he’s the best author ever.

So now you know, and you can decide which way you’d like to use this word pair! I’ll be back next time with more!

Until then!