The American Style of quotation mark punctuation makes no sense
Years ago, I translated an excellent essay by Terry Windling, On Tolkien and Fairie-Stories, from American English to Italian. I remember arguing with the author about her use of periods in quotations. Every quotation in her text had a period at the end, right before the closing mark. I was perplexed. We don’t do that in Italy, more importantly, I read many English texts where the period was outside the quotation. She insisted that her style was correct. In my rendition I moved the period after the end mark. Different languages, different rules. Little did I know that there are at least two different, conflicting quotation mark punctuation styles in English: American and British.
There are different ways of combining quotation and punctuation marks. In the American style, you almost always put periods and commas inside the quotation marks […] In the British style, however, you put periods and commas outside the quotation marks, unless they are part of a complete sentence that is fully contained between the quotation marks:
In The American Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation Makes No Sense the author illustrates the differences between the styles, and then argues that “the British approach makes more sense, so use that one.” Whoops.
Originally posted on my website.