I was always taught that if a word or phrase in quotes falls at the end of a sentence, the punctuation should come before the last quote. Perhaps this comes from long hours of coding VB, but I think this is quite silly, as the punctuation is not being quoted. In technical writing, I often have to quote words or phrases exactly. This has caused me great grief over the years, as the period inside the quotes can be interpreted by non-technical readers as being part of the quote itself. For example.
Click Start/Run, and type “command.”
That just doesn’t look right. I prefer. . .
Click Start/Run and type “command”.
But that’s not gramatically correct.
Anyone else out there think that this should be changed?
Well, you could move to England. Punctuation outside of quotes is the standard style on that side of the pond.
In general, this is a Style Question. If you’re writing for publication, you’ll want to follow house style. If not, then do it the way you want to. Nobody’s going to come after you for improper use of a period, after all. The important thing is to pick one style and be consistent with it.
I used to do the first, e.g., “command.” Then I read somewhere that there was, indeed, controversy about the proper way. So, because it looked more natural, I now do, e.g., “command”. I don’t remember where I read this, it might’ve been Theodore Bernstein’s The Careful Writer, but I’ll try to look it up.
The rule about moving the dot inside the quote is historically traced to one of the Chicago newspaper giants at the turn of the century.
The publisher started to get picky about all sorts of “problems”, like periods getting cut off or forgotten, and single words lost at the end of a column.
So he changed the rules.
Absolutely, it looks, feels, smells & just plain old tastes better that way. Placing the period inside the quotes suggests (to me, at least) that there is a full sentence (or at least an independant clause) within the quotes.
If the quoted text is a complete sentence, then the closing punctuation goes inside the quote. If the quoted text is not a complete sentence, then it goes outside the quote. Anything else looks silly to me.
I guess it’s because I’m American and I live and breathe by the Chicago Manual of Style. Because of that, I have a fondness and a comfort with American puncutation rules. To be fair, though, it does make more sense to put the punctuation outside of the quotation marks, brackets and parentheses, but there’s a lot that doesn’t make sense. If you want to concentrate on making English make sense, then you’ll inevitably have to take on the sticky issue of spelling reform, which I simply would want to touch.
If you want to talk about reforming English grammar, well, I have a few ideas. But the American version of English punctuation is something I’m comfortable with, and I see no pressing need to change something that I find aesthetically appealing. So I won’t.
My English teacher was complaining the other day about how now it’s becoming acceptable again to leave the period out of the quotes, but of course we’re still not allowed to do it.
Also I think if you’re giving technical instructions or something like …type “command”, it’s okay to bend the rules a little to avoid confusion.
That’s what I love about the SDMB. Here, I’me free to follow the British rules and use British spellings. And there’s nothing you people can do to stop me. BWAHAHAHAHA!
Is there an English equivalent to the Chicago Manual?
