It is likely to further fuel a national debate over whether proper use of grammar and punctuation is being devalued by society. It follows a number of local councils sparking public outrage by banning apostrophes from road signs, after national guidelines warned punctuation could "confuse" emergency services.
Some reversed the decision after members of the public resorted to using marker pens to fill in apostrophes missing from signs.
Professor Alan Smithers, head of the centre for education and employment research at the University of Buckingham, said: "We are living in a post-punctuation world created by big institutions. Some people may dismiss omissions as pedantry, but they have lost sight of the fact that precision of expression reflects precision of thought."
Speaking about the £5 notes a spokeswoman for the Trust, which aims to improve literacy levels in the UK, said: "If you are referencing a quotation word-for-word, use double quotation marks at the start and end of the quoted section. Place full stops and commas
inside the quotation marks for a complete quoted sentence."
Critics suggested the note's designers had sacrificed "correct" punctuation for the sake of creating an aesthetically pleasing design. A spokesman at the bank declined to comment.
The £5 notes were introduced in October last year and about 400 million are in circulation.
Dr Tara Stubbs, an English lecturer at the University of Oxford, said such omissions were "condescending" and accused the bank of trying to dumb down grammar.
She said: "It is a bit peculiar because it looks like it's the Five Pounds that's speaking and not Winston Churchill. There should be quotation marks and full stop, definitely. It also doesn't have the Oxford comma after 'tears'. To take that stuff out is condescending and I find efforts to dumb down like this just irritating."
Smithers also suggested the bank's designers "had a poor grasp of grammar", adding they were "more concerned about shapes and patterns".
But the bank's scant use of punctuation divided academics and literary experts. Some defended the decision.
Professor Geoff Pullum, a grammar expert at the University of Edinburgh, dismissed claims the notes were grammatically incorrect as "a silly myth".
He said: "The general principle that a full stop is required applies to connected prose. Quote marks would be serving no purpose on the note as it's obvious that the quote belongs to the great Sir Winston."
And Lisa Appignanesi, chairwoman of the Royal Society of Literature, suggested the absence of quote marks and a full stop would not have bothered Churchill, were he still alive.
She said: "The eminent Winston Churchill might have wondered why he was on a mere £5 note and not something a little weightier. I don't know, orator that he was, whether he would have noticed the missing punctuation."
