How do you quote a quotation that itself has mismatched quotes?

Question

Suppose that Eve said (in spoken English) > An apple a day keeps the doctor away, unquote. Also isn't Eve such a > great person? Like my mom always said quote Eve is the best person ever, > much better than that Alice person Now let us say that Bob wants to tell Alice what Eve said. Naively, he might say > Eve said the weirdest thing the other day. She said quote An apple a > day keeps the doctor away, unquote. Also isn't Eve such a great > person? Like my mom always said quote Eve is the best person ever, > much better than that Alice person unquote. What do you suppose it > means? The problem with saying this is that Alice would interpret this as > Eve said the weirdest thing the other day. She said "An apple a day > keeps the doctor away." Also isn't Eve such a great person? Like my > mom always said "Eve is the best person ever, much better than that > Alice person." What do you suppose it means? Whereas Bob actually meant > Eve said the weirdest thing the other day. She said "An apple a day > keeps the doctor away, unquote. Also isn't Eve such a great person? > Like my mom always said quote Eve is the best person ever, much better > than that Alice person." What do you suppose it means? How would Bob properly quote Eve without causing the above ambiguity? --- Note that this problem only really applies to spoken English, since if instead Bob was writing a letter to Alice, he could write > Eve said the weirdest thing the other day. She said "An apple a day > keeps the doctor away, unquote. Also isn't Eve such a great person? > Like my mom always said quote Eve is the best person ever, much better > than that Alice person." What do you suppose it means? and if Eve instead used quotation marks, there are already conventions for dealing with that.

Answer 1

I'm not sure why the carrot symbols < and > are being used here. That is not standard convention. Quotation marks should be used instead when reporting speech. If there is a quotation within a quotation, then the standard would be as follows:

Eve said, "Like my mom always said, 'Eve is the best person ever, much better than that Alice person.'"

In the example, there is a single quotation mark ' and ' inside of the standard quotation marks " and ".

I hope that helps!