Grammar Time: quotation marks

Posted by admin on Mar 9, 2011 in Academy | 0 comments

Hello Children. Today’s lesson shall be about punctuation in regards to quotation marks. Feel free to re-read this column a couple of times to make sure you’ve got it right. Now the thing you must remember here, is that the rules for where to place punctuation depends greatly on the country you are in. For instance, in America the convention is to tuck the smaller punctuation, such as commas and periods, inside the quotation marks regardless of whether or not it is part of the quote. That is the practice adopted by Mars’ Hill and many professors here at Trinity Western University. However, the British way is to place the punctuation wherever logic dictates it goes. So, if the period or comma is part of the quotation, it goes inside, but if it is not, it goes outside. For instance, the English think I am “brilliant beyond compare”.
However, in the case of tall punctuation, everyone is in agreement: it falls where logic dictates it should. If it is part of the quote, it goes inside of the quotation marks, otherwise it goes outside. For instance: did you see that huge crowd of people following me around crying “we will make you our queen”? But I turned to them and asked “how can you ask me to leave when I am clearly
needed here?”
Fear not, children, I shall not abandon you to the rat maze that is grammatical correctness. If you require further guidance e-mail me at mhchiefcopyeditor@gmail.com.