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Q&A Quotation notation in mathematics

1 answer  ·  posted 6mo ago by clemens‭  ·  last activity 6mo ago by clemens‭

Question logic notation
#1: Initial revision by user avatar clemens‭ · 2026-03-25T14:29:06Z (6 months ago)
Quotation notation in mathematics
In mathematics it is very often necessary to distinguish between an expression and its referent, as we do in English with quotation marks. For instance, we'd like to say that any statement of the form "$P ∧ Q$" entails "$P$" and "$Q$".

Are there any customary "mathematical quotation marks" that allow this? I looked in some books on model theory and logic I happened to have on hand (e.g. Cohen (1963) and Yasuhara (1971)) but haven't found anything (Rosser (1969) sometimes uses regular quotation marks, but I don't think that's typical).

(Incidentally, it seems as though what's needed is more a form of "quasiquotation" (as done in Lisp) than regular quotation, as saying that "$P∧Q$" entails "$P$" is useless if there isn't an understanding that "$P$" and "$Q$" are placeholders for arbitrary expressions.)