The Rise of "Logical Punctuation".
Ben Yagoda,
May 14, 2011
Interesting article on where to put the period when the sentence ends with a quotation mark. The style is changing, asserts the article, from always placing it inside, to placing it outside. I do a lot of quotation in this newsletter, and here's the rule I follow. If the punctuation mark is logically a part of the main sentence, I put it outside the quotation mark. That's how I manage short "clips" and "bits and pieces". But if the punctuation is logically a part of the sentence being quoted (which is typically preceded with a comma) I place it inside the quotation mark. That is how I would handle a sentence like, "You pays your money, and you takes your choice." I don't think the author of this article has discerned the logic of "logical punctuation" but I think he correctly identifies a shifting - and improved - rule.
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