Punctuation Convention

Correct.

The punctuation is correct, although you probably will find it done wrong fairly often.

However, we use "that" only to introduce indirect quotes: Jesus said that the gimps are going to take over the planet, or something like that.

You don't use "that" with a direct quote: Darwin notes, "some organisms breed freely under the most unnatural conditions".

Correct.

Incorrect, at least in American typography. Always use double quotes. You only use single quotes in the inner component of a nested quotation: I liked the part of your speech when you remarked, "Don't be like Kris Kristofferson, and hear yourself saying one day, 'I'd trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday.' "

This is wrong, because the sentence is not a question so it does not take a question mark. To simplify for clarity, suppose it were, Gosh I wonder whether I should bother the professor this early in the morning. That's a statement of what you're thinking, not a question. The question is in your head, not on the paper.

Furthermore, as written, your sentence does not make it clear that you're actually quoting him or just paraphrasing. He wondered where he could find the most delicious tuna known to man. That's okay with no quote marks. If those seven words are his own exact language, then, He wondered where he could find "the most delicious tuna known to man." But if you want to make it a complete quote, it's, He wondered, "Where can I find the most delicious tuna known to man?"

The "As" at the beginning of the line turns that into a clause rather than a complete sentence, so it's hard to analyze.

That's correct.

Indeed.

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Not in America. The default is to put the punctuation mark inside the closing quote, unless it will change the meaning in some substantive way.

We will happily write:

Wasn't it George Washington who said, "I cannot tell a lie?"

I'm not sure I understand what you just said. But in America single quotes are used for the internal component of a nested quotation, and that's just about all they're used for outside of computer programming.

It's Spanish and it's spelled tilde

I must say, I've never heard of this, but then I get surprised all the time. The tilde evolved from an N written above another letter, to show that it is not simply an N but changes the sound of the affected letter. Spanish ñ is pronounced NY but the N is palatalized, not a dental consonant as N usually is in Spanish. Portuguese ã is a nasalized vowel as in French.

You must be British or Aussie because we don't write that way in the USA.

He had found dissent in his own ranks: deception, a thing he despised with the greatest of fervor.

At least I'm trying to figure out what that sentence means and parse it correctly!

Maybe it's: He had found dissent in his own ranks--deception--a thing he despised with the greatest of fervor.

I just don't see how dissent can be a form of deception, or vice versa, so I'm having trouble figuring this one out. If the dissent was deceitful because it was clandestine, then that should be made clearer. Anyway, on to the next one:

Never before was he affected so greatly by another individual; his confidence forever shaken, its return seemed unlikely.

In America the tilde is not used as a punctuation mark. It is used in mathematical notation. Other than that, it's a diacritical mark used for foreign words and names. It's also a tone marker in Vietnamese, and perhaps in romanization of the less well-known Chinese languages with twelve tones like Fuqian.

But perhaps you need someone who's more familiar with British typographical rules. They may be different.

 

I can only cite American style rules. As I noted earlier, British punctuation does not always agree with ours. In American typography you never put the final punctuation mark to the right of the closing quotation mark unless it will confuse a (good) reader or actually change the meaning of the quotation or the whole sentence.

I understand that in modern colloquial speech Charles might have actually said, "I love Mary?" as if to ask, "What's wrong with me? She's a convicted murderess!" I'll put that one aside until I actually run across it in my editing assignments.

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And that's why we don't do it that way. Cluttering up the end of a sentence with multiple punctuation marks makes them hard to read, and gets the printer screaming about wasted space that could be used for advertising.

Yet another reason why "the above" is not standard style

On both sides of the Atlantic. We occasionally agree on the simple stuff.

Yes--and once again, on both sides of the Atlantic. Surely if this topic interests you so greatly you can't help but be conscious of punctuation when you're reading. Have you EVER seen that construction? It would stand out like a neon sign.

After all, language was spoken for eons before writing was invented, so apparently it contains all of the necessary signals to sort out questions from declaratives statements, without the very recent inventions called punctuation marks. In English, syntax is a very good guide. By putting "did" in front of the subject of your sentence, you have clearly told everyone that it's going to be a question, so the question mark isn't really necessary in the first place! In the second place, the quotation starts with a question word, identifying it as a question also, so neither question mark is absolutely necessary for clarity!