Notes on Punctuation

Differences between American and British Usage.


"There is, too, a gulf between American usage and our own, with Americans always using double quotation marks and American grammarians insisting that, if a sentence ends with a phrase in inverted commas, all the terminal punctuation for the sentence must come tidily inside the speech marks, even when this doesn't seem to make sense.

Sophia asked Lord Fellamar if he was "out of his senses". (British)
Sophia asked Lord Fellamar if he was "out of his senses." (American)


Since where and when to put other punctuation in direct speech is a real bother to some people, here are some basic rules:

When a piece of dialogue is attributed at its end, conclude it with a comma inside the inverted commas:

"You are out of your senses, Lord Fellamar," gasped Sophia.

When the dialogue is attributed at the start, conclude with a full stop inside the inverted commas:

Lord Fellamar replied, "Love has so totally deprived me of reason that I am scarce accountable for my actions."

When the dialogue stands on its own, the full stop comes inside the inverted commas:

"Upon my word, Lord, I neither understand your words nor your behaviour."

When only a fragment of speech is being quoted, put punctuation outside the inverted commas:

Sophia recognised in Lord Fellamar the "effects of frenzy", and tried to break away.

When the quotation is a question or exclamation, the terminal marks come inside the inverted commas:

"Am I really to conceive your Lordship to be out of his senses?" cried Sophia.
"Unhand me, sir!" she demanded.

But when the question is posed by the sentence rather than by the speaker, logic demands that the question mark goes outside the inverted commas:

Why didn't Sophia see at once that his lordship doted on her "to the highest degree of distraction"?

Where the quoted speech is a full sentence requiring a full stop (or other terminal mark) of its own, and coincidentally comes at the end of the containing sentence, the mark inside the inverted comma serves for both:

Then fetching a deep sigh [...] he ran on for some minutes in a strain which would be little more pleasing to the reader than it was to the lady; and at last concluded with a declaration, "That if he was master of the world, he would lay it at her feet."

The basic rule is straightforward and logical: when the punctuation relates to the quoted words it goes inside the inverted commas; when it relates to the sentence, it goes outside. Unless, of course, you are in America."

~ Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves