Page 168 - Perfect English Grammar: The Indispensable Guide to Excellent Writing and Speaking
P. 168
■ US: “We are all ready for a new revolution,” she said. “I aim to be in
the front of that army.”
■ UK: ‘We are all ready for a new revolution’, she said. ‘I aim to be in
the front of that army’.
Some English users believe it’s not logical for commas or periods to be
inserted inside the quotation marks, especially if one is quoting printed matter
and the commas and periods are not there in the original. However, English is
not logical, and arguing about it on logical grounds is pointless. It’s best to stick
to the convention for most writing. This isn’t a place for you to be an innovator.
In fact, the logical argument is faulty because we make all kinds of changes
to what appears inside quotation marks, including deletions, additions,
substitutions, and capitalization. But it all fits a standard set of universally
accepted conventions that signals to the reader that something was done that may
have altered the text, while still keeping the meaning and intent of the original.
The convention of putting the commas and periods inside quotation marks,
by the way, is a typographical one: periods and commas look better inside or,
more precisely, under quotation marks. Under is how they look, thanks to
kerning, which is the automatically controlled space between characters;
computers just slide the periods and commas under the close quote.
One exception we may make is when quoting software code. In that case, a
comma or period inside quotation marks could be misunderstood as being part of
the code and could lead to undesirable programming outcomes.
■ On the next line, type “var str = document.getElementById(“demo”).
innerHTML;”.
Question marks behave differently than periods and commas. Unless they are
part of the original quotation, they go outside the closing quotation, rather than
inside.
■ Do you know the song “Sweet Caroline”? I sing it for karaoke.
■ I think “Are You Gonna Go My Way?” by Lenny Kravitz rocks.
