A question of quotation marks...

[javasaurus]

If you end a written question with a quoted word or phrase, do you put the question mark before or after the quotation marks? If the question mark is part of the quoted material, it goes before the marks, otherwise it goes after. The same rule applies to exclamation points. However, with periods and commas, the mark *always* goes before the quotation marks. I don't know why, and I believe the rule is different (and more sensible) in England, but that's the rule for America. Who makes these rules, anyway?

Now for my question: I'm coauthor on a paper that will be published soon. We just got the proofs from the journal, and they put a period after the quotation marks. Should I correct it, or let it slide, hoping that this little "error" will help propogate change in American grammar?

Comments

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Does the journal have a style guide that mentions such things, or do they inform authors if they follow a specific style guide?

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Yes. They suggest "The ACS Style Guide," 2nd edition. Unfortunately, I don't have easy access to a copy. If I don't find any other errors (and I haven't, so far), I'm probably not going to worry about it.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

try google? maybe a summary of ACS exists. I know I have a copy but its buried in my garage.

From the Hacker's Dictionary (and this section has been written exactly like this since before 1988):

Hackers tend to use quotes as balanced delimiters like parentheses, much to the dismay of American editors. Thus, if "Jim is going" is a phrase, and so are "Bill runs" and "Spock groks", then hackers generally prefer to write: "Jim is going", "Bill runs", and "Spock groks". This is incorrect according to standard American usage (which would put the continuation commas and the final period inside the string quotes); however, it is counter-intuitive to hackers to mutilate literal strings with characters that don't belong in them. Given the sorts of examples that can come up in discussions of programming, American-style quoting can even be grossly misleading. When communicating command lines or small pieces of code, extra characters can be a real pain in the neck.

Consider, for example, a sentence in a vi tutorial that looks like this:

Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd".

Standard usage would make this

Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd."

but that would be very bad -- because the reader would be prone to type the string d-d-dot, and it happens that in vi(1) dot repeats the last command accepted. The net result would be to delete two lines!

The Jargon File follows hackish usage throughout.

Interestingly, a similar style is now preferred practice in Great Britain, though the older style (which became established for typographical reasons having to do with the aesthetics of comma and quotes in typeset text) is still accepted there. "Hart's Rules" and the "Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors" call the hacker-like style `new' or `logical' quoting.

I always put the . or comma outside the quotes. always.

Granted, I don't write fiction.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info! The logical half of my brain prefers the "logical" quoting, but the purist part of my brain screams against it. The dd. example is very nice.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

i write software manuals and documentation. "logical" is the only thing that works for me.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

as for "Who makes up these rules?" - that's the great unknown. the reality is that there were mixed standards, just like for spelling, for decades. finally, some newspaper decided to not only clean it up for their own writing, but to actually publish what they chose to use since they get so many submissions from non-employees.

I believe the Chicago Tribune set the current style, if my memory recalls this conversation from some 16 years ago.

However, I just looked up "ACS Style", and what came up was Oxford U Press, which did the outside-the-quotes version. :)

Actually, here's an ACS summary:

4. Placement of punctuation with quoted material. ACS style differs from some standard English practices concerning the placement of punctuation around quotation marks.

a. When introducing a quotation that is a complete sentence, do not place a comma before the opening quotation mark and do place the period inside the closing quotation mark if the quote ends the sentence.

The Nobel Prize-winning physicist Isidor Rabi said “If you decide you don’t have to get As, you can learn a lot in college.”

b. If a punctuation mark is not part of the quoted material, do not place the punctuation within the closing quotation mark.
The manufacturing process the scientist invented was “new”.

I would note that in addition to that, the count of commas involved in a list is also subject to variation.

a, b and c

vs

a, b, and c

or the "oxford trailer":

a, b, and c,

I perfer the middle. leaving a comma out can presume that two items are associated, as in

a and (b and c)

which while mathematically is irrelevant, in english it can be deceptive in its connotation.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Ah, so ACS is British, which explains the ". instead of ."

As for the commas, I'm a strong believer in a, b, and c. Why? Cheese, ham, peanut butter and banana and tuna are great sandwiches!

Thanks for the link to the ACS page. It's now in my "favorites" folder.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's "American Chemical Society" so it might be American after all, but certainly meant to follow some degree of international standards.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean that ACS itself is British, but rather ACS Style. I misunderstood your reference to Oxford U Press, thinking you meant that ACS followed Oxford style. I'm more awake today.

I also found the ACS Style Guide in our library, and it states
Location of quotation marks is a style point in which ACS differs from other authorities. IN 1978, ACS questioned the traditional practice and reommended a deviation: logical placement. Thus if punctuation is part of the quotation, then it should be within the quotation marks; if the punctuation is not part of the quotation, the writer should not mislead the reader by implying that it is.

So now we know why most American styles have the period within the quotes. It's so Americans can mislead their readers!

[wilhelmina-d.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, if the quote is a question the question mark is inside the quotes. She said, "Where are you going?". If the sentence including the quote is a question you have question mark outside the quotes, Did she say "stop doing that"?

Periods go outside quote marks, unless it's dialogue.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Regarding question marks, I'm clear on that. The initial question was meant as a lead-in to the topic of period/comma placement, about which I'm actually also clear. In traditional American styles (for example, Chicago/Turabian), a period or comma always goes within the quotation marks. In British style, placement is "logical," meaning the period/comma is inside the quotes only if it is part of the quoted material. ACS, despite being an American style guide, uses the logical style.

My real question was whether to correct the journal's editor in what I perceived as an error, because at the time, I didn't realize they used ACS style. Heck, I didn't even know there was an ACS style when I started this topic.