Quotation punctuation... a question of you saying tomaytoes?

US punctuation rules, like our spelling, are not followed anywhere else in the known universe.

Pick one style, and be consistent. If you expect to submit to US agents and editors, I'd pick US.

I'd stick with the advice you received re comma usage here on AW. With the ["I hate you," he said.] example, the comma goes inside the quotes. Ditto with "I hate you!" and "I hate you?" and other punctuation. It's part of the dialogue so it stays with the dialogue, inside the quotes. (If rules are different in your own country then apply those rules instead.)

Yes, UK publishers use single quotes for dialogue (which I personally don't like, since it's too easy to confuse apostrophes with closing single quotes). But that doesn't mean you need to use single quotes in your manuscript if submitting in the UK. When it comes time to publish, the publisher's typesetter elves will fix the quotes for you.

-Derek

Maxinquaye said:

Which goes with my native language's rule. The comma in the above example is not something that the character is saying, and therefore it should not be inside the quotation marks. A comma is a written sentence construct, part of the grammarian creation of words. It's not something you say. So it can't be quoted per se.

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I'm a bit surprised to see the comma outside the quotationmarks, and I'd also like to point out that the piece in question is not about where the punctuation goes, but about singles or doubles. (Although the style guide does imply that it's all house-rules, including "adjusting final punctuation order".)

I'm using the British version, i.e. punctuation inside if it belongs to the text quoted, outside if it belongs to the sentence. The problem with the comma in examples like these is that it's not clear where it belongs. It's true that the comma isn't "said". But some sort of punctuation is (probably a full-stop), and that's replaced with the comma. Technically, the quotation functions as the object of the verb "said" (or "asked" or whatever), and you don't put a comma between the verb and its object, though the issue is not as clear if you have object-verb inversion (He said he'd buy apples, and apples he bought," looks better to me than "...and apples, he bought." I wouldn't use the latter, but it's not as clear-cut as not saying "He bought, apples.") So the comma does belong to the quoted sentences more, in my mind, than it does to the sentence that contains the quote.

So, why is it a comma? I suppose it's because people don't like ending punctuation in the middle of a sentence. Convention has chosen one of two evils:

A: "I hate you," he said.

rather than

B: "I hate you." he said.

Note that exclamation marks and question marks are not replaced.

C: "I hate you!" he said.

Now, I think the comma in A (a full-stop in disguise, really) belongs to the quoted material just as much as the exclamation mark in C. B is wrong, but that's a matter of convention, not logical necessity. If B were correct, there would be no question as to where the full-stop would go. I vote to treat the comma in A like the fullstop in B. Comma inside.

It's a tricky issue, though, as this argument doesn't hold for situations like the following:

D: "I," he said, "hate you!"

Here, the comma clearly doesn't belong to the quoted material. There is no comma between subject and verb. Yet, I'd still use it like this rather than:

E: "I", he said, "hate you!"

Hmph. Dialogue punctuation is a thing of convention anyway. Which leads me back to the surprising Oxford quote. I don't think I've seen sentence ending commas (=ersatz-full-stops) placed outside the quote before. Interesting. Thanks for that.

At this point I'd like to point out, although I'm arguing "comma inside", I still generally put non-related punctuation outside of the quotation marks (as this very sentence demonstrates ).

UK punctuation-with-quotes isn't as different as some folks think. In straight-up dialog, UK and US rules are the same. It's short quotes inside sentences where they differ.

* 'I,' he said, 'hate you!' = US and UK

* ...although I'm arguing 'comma inside', = UK

* ...although I'm arguing 'comma inside,' = US

I'm originally from the US and mastered US punctuation rules at an early age. I've lived in the UK for over 9 years, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say I've 'mastered' UK punctuation rules, I have a pretty darn good handle on them now.

What they said

Think of it this way in dialogue

Note 1: Strictly speaking, the only punctuation marks that should go inside the quotation marks are those that are part of the quotation itself.

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The punctuation in dialogue is part of the dialogue ( indicating a pause or a ! or whathaveyou) and therefore part of the quote and so in dialogue go inside the quotes, as so ably demonstrated above.

The other rule is for if you are quoting someone directly. 'When asked how she felt about inflatable implants Jordan said "I dunnow", which sounds about par for the course.'

Best rule of thuumb - how do they do it in the books on your shelf?

IdiotsRUs said:

Best rule of thumb - how do they do it in the books on your shelf?

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Where's the fun in that?

-Derek

dpaterso said:

Where's the fun in that?

-Derek

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If it's erotica, vicarious titillation

I'd just like to add that I've read a lot of British novels (yes, British editions, with British punctuation) and I've only ever seen punctuation outside the quotes when a character was not directly saying something, but was being quoted by the narrator. For example,

"I hate you," Max said would be correct.

Also correct: The narrator says, Max was always a hateful kid. He'd say all the time "I hate you", and expect you to believe it.

Essentially, stuff you might as well replace with italics if that's your style.

Edited to add: Of course, use inverted commas for my British examples instead of quotation marks.