RULES IS RULES

Quoth the Writer: “How the Hell Should I Use Quotation Marks?”

A primer with a view from both sides of the big pond

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

A Pen2Profit subscriber lamented that she was confused by quotation mark conventions US vs Brits. Yes, the eternal struggle — a battle fought mainly by grammar nerds, editors, and anyone who’s ever hesitated before typing a period. So here’s my no-quite-definitive guide to punctuation and quotation marks.

Quotes American style

If you’re in the U.S., commas and periods are needy clingers — they always go inside the quotation marks, whether they belong there or not. Logic? Who cares?

• Example: She said, “I love reading.” (That period? It’s inside, no questions asked.)
• Example: I watched the movie “The Matrix.” (Like I said, periods go inside the quotes — always.) Period.

However, question marks, exclamation points, colons, and semicolons actually use common sense — they only go inside if they belong to a quote like dialog, a colloquialism, a title — when the punctuation is part of something that needs quotes.

• Example: Did she say, “I will come”? (The question mark applies to the whole sentence, not the quote, so it stays outside.)