# Grammar Punctuation Question
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 5, 2009, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951 "2009-07-05T02:34:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Casserole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casserole)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/1 "2009-07-05T02:34:50Z")
Wikipedia has a blurb about it, but doesn’t go into detail as to “why” this rule is so.
**Rule** : In a quote spanning multiple paragraphs, it is correct to place quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph, and only at the end of the last paragraph.
**Corollary** : Placing quotation marks at the end of a paragraph is incorrect _if and only if_ the quotation continues past that point.
**Example** :
> [@](#):
>
> "John and Jane decided to get some fruit. Today was Tuesday, so Jane had decided apples were a good bet.
>
> "However, John hated apples, and all fruits… really. He wanted to get a remote control blimp to terrify his family with.
>
> “Unfortunately, Jane (being his wife and all), had already been scared once by the blimp in question and quickly put her foot down. End of discussion.”
* * *
So why is this the case? I have a problem with “finishing things I start”, long held over from the mild OCD-ridden time of my childhood, where if I tapped with my left foot, I had to tap with my right. Naturally, of course, opening a quotation mark meant that somewhere down the line, you had to close it, but with this rule, you’d be opening multiple quotation marks, and only closing one.
The inner child ( **and** the computer programmer) in me is screaming in agony every time it happens, but can’t complain because it’s “right”.
So, enlighten me, my bretheren 🙂
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/2 "2009-07-05T02:51:57Z")
It’s a consensus style. There had to be a way to handle it and, in the U.S. at least, this is the choice.
It’s not grammar. It’s style. Style has no origins. It just coheres out of the mist. This one works. It signals a beginning, continuity through a quotation, and an end point. That’s actually pretty amazing for a few unobtrusive marks.
And this style is universal, again as far as I know. You’ll just have to bear up with it.
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/3 "2009-07-05T03:15:38Z")
I’ve actually been meaning to post a mini-rant about this, because many posters here don’t seem to know this “rule.”
The first thing to keep in mind that setting words in type is not computer programming. The latter has to be rigidly logical and precise, the former is intended to convey information to the reader in the easiest and most convenient manner. Conventions in aid of that process have evolved over several centuries of producing printed material, but unfortunately many of them seem to be losing ground to the (unrelated) rules of computer programming, HTML, XML, etc., which more people learn these days than typography conventions.
The reason to put an open quote at the start of each new paragraph is simply to remind the reader that you are still quoting. Without that reminder, the reader might assume that the new paragraph is you speaking again. Yes, if that were the case, there should have been a close quote at the end, but it’s easy to assume one was there when it wasn’t.
And obviously, if you’re quoting multiple paragraphs from the same source, you don’t close paragraph 1, open paragraph 2, and so on, because that is the convention for quoting a different source.
The argument against following programming style is that if you use only one open quote, the reader has to search through the next few graphs and find the close quote to figure out where the quoted material ends. It’s distracting. And it can be particularly hard if you close the quote in the middle of a paragraph and add some of your own text at the end of the graph.
So please, for the sake of your readers, follow the proper typographic style, not programming practice, and put an open quote at the beginning of each graph, and a single close quote at the end.
It’s the right way.
(BTW, commas and periods go inside quotes even if they’re not part of the quoted material. I hate seeing a period outside a quotation mark, hanging out there all alone and lonely.)
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/4 "2009-07-05T03:31:24Z")
> [@commasense](#):
>
> (BTW, commas and periods go inside quotes even if they’re not part of the quoted material. I hate seeing a period outside a quotation mark, hanging out there all alone and lonely.)
But it’s not out there ‘all alone and lonely’. You could replace ‘all alone and lonely’ with a variable: But it’s not out there SPLUNGE. If the period was part of the string, then you would not have a period at the end of the sentence. The period would be inside of the sentence if it’s part of the string: Commasense said, ‘I hate seeing the period… all alone and lonely.’ I guess you’ll just have to hate me. 😉
I agree with the rest of your post though.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/5 "2009-07-05T03:41:44Z")
The close-quotes mark (“99” style double quotation mark) signals the end of a quotation – whe3ther the final end, or a pause while comments not a part of the quotation are interjected.
The open-quotes mark (“66” style) indicates that what follows is quoted.
Hence a quotation that spans two or more paragraphs begins with “66” marks, repeats them at the beginning of each included paragraph, but has “99” style quotation marks only at the end of the full quotation (plus any internal interjections not part of the quoted material).
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/6 "2009-07-05T04:00:19Z")
> [@commasense](#):
>
> The reason to put an open quote at the start of each new paragraph is simply to remind the reader that you are still quoting.
Still quoting _the same person_, that is.
> [@commasense](#):
>
> Without that reminder, the reader might assume that the new paragraph is you speaking again.
And if there is a close quote and the end of a paragraph and an open quote at the beginning of the next paragraph, it might seem like another person is speaking.
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### Author:  [@Casserole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casserole)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/7 "2009-07-05T04:08:53Z")
Fair enough - but quoted material doesn’t often share the same written style as unquoted material.
For example, if you were quoting a primary source, in a secondary-source paper, you’d be quoting data sets and discussion (unquoted) interpretations.
You make a good point that people might skip over the quotation mark at the end of a middle paragraph, but the _correct_ way seems to have an “extra” quotation mark sitting all lonely at the beginning of an arbitrary paragraph with no mate 🙂
But then again, I’m just complaining. Thanks.
Edit: Wikipedia talks about two ways to place punctuation inside or outside of quotation marks. In my experience, I place them outside, as in **my** personal usage, the comma isn’t ever “part” of the quote. Likewise, the period is the be-all end-all of the sentence, and must come at the end. Hence, outside the quotation mark.
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/8 "2009-07-05T04:38:34Z")
> [@](#):
>
> **Casserole** : Edit: Wikipedia talks about two ways to place punctuation inside or outside of quotation marks. In my experience, I place them outside, as in my personal usage, the comma isn’t ever “part” of the quote. Likewise, the period is the be-all end-all of the sentence, and must come at the end. Hence, outside the quotation mark.
In the United States, periods and commas _always_ go inside the quotation marks. (There is one teeny-tiny exception which has nothing to do with regular writing.) The practice began as a printer’s tradition.
Other forms of punctuation vary in relation to quotation marks depending on how they are used in the sentences:
On what page is the short story “The Lottery”?
He was singing “Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?”
In those other countries where they speak English in hysterical accents, who knows what they will do in writing the language?
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/9 "2009-07-05T05:27:30Z")
> [@Zoe](#):
>
> In the United States, periods and commas _always_ go inside the quotation marks. (There is one teeny-tiny exception which has nothing to do with regular writing.) The practice began as a printer’s tradition.
(snipped)
Except, incidentally, on Wikipedia, at least, back when I was an active editor. I pointed out that periods inside quotes was an American thing, and thus should be allowed in American-styled articles, and got shut down.
Of course, in certain essay formats, you get something like this:
According to a printer’s tradition, “periods and commas _always_ go inside the quotation marks” (Zoe).
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### Author:  [@Casserole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casserole)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/10 "2009-07-05T06:07:53Z")
He was singing “Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?”.
Unlike you, I see no problem with the added period. The quotation mark separates the two, and clearly divides where the quote ends, and where the sentence ends.
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/11 "2009-07-05T09:50:23Z")
**Casserole** , why do you need a period in addition to the question mark?
> [@](#):
>
> **Big T** : I pointed out that periods inside quotes was an American thing, and thus should be allowed in American-styled articles, and got shut down.
Why did they shut you down? Did they think the rule held in other English speaking countries too? (I’m assuming you noticed that I mentioned the United States.) Did they disagree about the accepted style for American publishers? I worked for the Newspaper Printing Corporation, a publishing house, and an advertising business. Then I spent 20 years teaching English in high school. This rule is very consistent in the States.
Wiki just manufactured biographical information on a gentleman who lives in Nashville. The information that was submitted was deliberately false and Wiki accepted it and refused to change it. The gentleman had been an aide to Robert Kennedy when the was Attorney General. In more recent years he has founded the First Amendment Center. In between he has had a rather extraordinary career. Getting the info changed was an adventure that is often related at the First Amendment Center Website.
I still use Wiki for getting me started in the right direction, but I just can’t really count on it. I know you must have worked hard.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/12 "2009-07-05T16:42:36Z")
> [@Casserole](#):
>
> He was singing “Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?”.
>
> Unlike you, I see no problem with the added period. The quotation mark separates the two, and clearly divides where the quote ends, and where the sentence ends.
Sorry, but like Zoe, I know that the style is for no extra period for a question mark. Or exclamation point, for that matter. There are few universals in style, but this is another one of them.
How did computer programming even get into this discussion? It’s as irrelevant as dragging in fishing.
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/13 "2009-07-05T17:43:19Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> How did computer programming even get into this discussion? It’s as irrelevant as dragging in fishing.
It’s right there in the OP:
> [@](#):
>
> The inner child **(and the computer programmer)** in me is screaming in agony every time it happens, but can’t complain because it’s “right”.
Emphasis added.
As I mentioned in my post, more people these days learn programming than learn the rather arcane rules of typography that you, Zoe, and I are propounding, and yet we’re all in the typography business these days. The OP and others familiar with programming or HTML coding know that their code probably won’t work if they don’t have a close quote, bracket, or parens to match every open quote, bracket, or parens. Likewise, the text inside any pair of such containers has to be specific and precise, and an extraneous comma or period will also very likely cause problems.
So it is not surprising that people would tend to apply programming styles to their ordinary writing, even though it’s contrary to the longer-standing traditions and styles of good typography.
**Zoe** , unfortunately, Wikipedia’s established style is that periods and commas always go outside quotes. Just another sign of the decline of civilization.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/14 "2009-07-05T21:24:48Z")
> [@commasense](#):
>
> It’s right there in the OP: Emphasis added.
Yes, I know. I was complaining about that.
I also happen to know a bit about coding myself, having started with Fortran on punch cards.
> [@](#):
>
> So it is not surprising that people would tend to apply programming styles to their ordinary writing, even though it’s contrary to the longer-standing traditions and styles of good typography.
Yet I do find it surprising. In those 40 years it never once occurred to me to equate what happens in programming with the styles of English. They are two separate fields of understanding.
In all my years of working in software - as the writer guy, not a coding guy, somebody who put their inarticulate mumblings into readable prose - I never once had a programmer come up to me and compare the two.
I’m the one who jumps with both feet on those yelling about how the modern generation is ruining English. But I’m not going to defend this. Programming has as much to do with the styles of prose writing as fishing does.
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### Author:  [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/15 "2009-07-06T01:46:46Z")
> [@Zoe](#):
>
> Why did they shut you down? Did they think the rule held in other English speaking countries too? (I’m assuming you noticed that I mentioned the United States.) Did they disagree about the accepted style for American publishers?
Wiki has it’s own style guide, and says of this:
[QUOTE=wiki]
On Wikipedia, place all punctuation marks inside the quotation marks if they are part of the quoted material and outside if they are not. This practice is referred to as logical quotation. It is used by Wikipedia both because of the principle of minimal change, and also because the method is less prone to misquotation, ambiguity, and the introduction of errors in subsequent editing.
[/quote]
[QUOTE=Zoe]
This rule is very consistent in the States.
[/quote]
Even in the US some scientific and technical publications use logical quoting to reduce ambiguity.
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#):
>
> How did computer programming even get into this discussion? It’s as irrelevant as dragging in fishing.
Maybe, maybe not. To offer a trivial example of a technical use where US common usage would be bad…
To delete a line using the _vi_ editor type: “dd”.
US common usage would place the period inside the quotes, and this would delete a line and then repeat the last command, deleting a second line. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2009, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/16 "2009-07-06T01:58:20Z")
> [@commasense](#):
>
> The first thing to keep in mind that setting words in type is not computer programming. The latter has to be rigidly logical and precise, the former is intended to convey information to the reader in the easiest and most convenient manner.
Agreed, computer programming has to be rigidly logical, precise, and unambiguous because computers are dumb and literal.
Some human readers are also dumb and literal… ok, perhaps not as dumb as computers, but… if the one holds true for presenting information in an unambiguous way why shouldn’t it be used for the other?
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> I’m the one who jumps with both feet on those yelling about how the modern generation is ruining English. But I’m not going to defend this. Programming has as much to do with the styles of prose writing as fishing does.
Interesting, so you think that the US common convention is better. In what way is it better? Does it use less characters, convey more information, or is it less ambiguous?
For myself, it uses the same number of characters to convey slightly less information; I cannot tell if the period was or was not part of the original – and that is even if I know that the writer was American.
ETA: Sorry if I sound like a zealot on this – please consider it a (small) hot button topic to this non-American English speaker.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2009, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/17 "2009-07-06T02:11:18Z")
> [@Apollyon](#):
>
> ETA: Sorry if I sound like a zealot on this – please consider it a (small) hot button topic to this non-American English speaker.
Whether or not the comma or other mark goes inside the quotation mark has been debated for decades, since long before computers. We can continue to debate it for decades without any reference to any programming. And why should we?
> [@](#):
>
> To delete a line using the vi editor type: “dd”.
>
> US common usage would place the period inside the quotes, and this would delete a line and then repeat the last command, deleting a second line.
That may be true. Is it true for every programming language on earth? If not, then programming isn’t a guide, is it? And isn’t every single programming language a case of an extremely rigid style guide rather than an example of anything so “logical” that prose language should follow it?
I would prefer that the quotation marks go outside in all cases myself. And if I feel like doing do, I do so.
Styles do convey information. But they do so by consistency and history rather than pure logic. This is true for everything, without exception.
Yes, I said without exception. Wanna make something of it? 😉
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### Author:  [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/18 "2009-07-06T02:48:18Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> That may be true. Is it true for every programming language on earth? If not, then programming isn’t a guide, is it?
I did say that this was an “example of a technical use where US common usage would be bad”. And it is. The point was not that every programming language follows the arcane and inscrutable rules of **vi** (thank goodness), but rather that there are times when logical quoting is necessary, and style guides be damned. 🙂 This tends to be truest when the material being quoted is technical in nature… which perhaps blurs the lines between pure prose and programming. In the former, no, logical quoting isn’t necessary, but as the writing gets closer to programming it may be needed.
> [@](#):
>
> I would prefer that the quotation marks go outside in all cases myself. And if I feel like doing do, I do so.
OK, and it is just that in most cases: a preference.
> [@](#):
>
> Styles do convey information. But they do so by consistency and history rather than pure logic.
Although in this case the US historical preference conveys less information than the British version. To wit: I cannot tell in the US version whether the period was part of the original quoted material, i.e. did the quote end there or not? In the British version this information is conveyed with no extra characters. (More information + same characters = better encoding).
> [@](#):
>
> This is true for everything, without exception.
> Yes, I said without exception. Wanna make something of it? 😉
😃 No, because you are one of the 'Dopers who I very much enjoy reading posts from.
(Unfortunately in this matter you are apparently deeply and incurably wrong – but I’ll let it pass). 🆒
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2009, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/19 "2009-07-06T03:56:43Z")
> [@Apollyon](#):
>
> (Unfortunately in this matter you are apparently deeply and incurably wrong – but I’ll let it pass). 🆒
It’s a style. And another country’s style at that! I even emphasized I was talking specifically about U.S. in my first post. So I can’t be wrong! :mad:
But, c’mere. Tell ya what I gonna do. I like yous, see. Your a good kid. Got a noodle on ya. You can go back to your gang, whatcacall your limeys, and tell ‘em that I tells all my boys to use the Oxford comma, see. That’s what ya might call your trans-pond gesture of friendship. We can do business i’ the future if ya keeps that tongue in your mouf. Otherwise you might find it on the outside one day, 'tween two slices of rye bread and some of dat deli mustard. Capiche?
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### Author:  [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2009, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-punctuation-question/501951/20 "2009-07-06T04:33:12Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> It’s a style. And another country’s style at that! I even emphasized I was talking specifically about U.S. in my first post. So I can’t be wrong! :mad:
Oops, so you did. ☹
> [@](#):
>
> You can go back to your gang, whatcacall your limeys…
Limey?! :eek: Err… Kiwis… and no, not the fruit, let’s not go down that track (again…)
> [@](#):
>
> …and tell 'em that I tells all my boys to use the Oxford comma, see.
Well, that’s something at least… although you probably call it a Harvard comma or somesuch… _mumble_🙂
> [@](#):
>
> That’s what ya might call your trans-pond gesture of friendship.
It’s one hellavu pond from there to here.
> [@](#):
>
> Capiche?
Capisco. 😃
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