Q. Although CMOS 6.9 states clearly that commas and periods should always go within quotation marks, it doesn’t provide a solution when you have to put the single and double quotation marks together, as in “He announced, ‘These quotation marks look terrible.’” Is there a prescribed amount of space that goes between the single and double quotes in these cases?
A. Please see CMOS 6.11: “When single quotation marks are nested within double quotation marks, and two of the marks appear next to each other, a space between the two marks, though not strictly required, aids legibility.” (You can find this by typing “single quotation marks” into the Search box or by looking in the index under “Quotation marks: single: double next to.”)