You don't need a period after a question markOr exclamation mark.
You think I have problems? What about the horse?
Grammatical Conundrum: ." or ". or .".
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You think I have problems? What about the horse?
In books they do this. Annoys me with dialogue rich text though as I end up wondering if the character has finished talking.
Personally I think #2 or #3 are more logical. I can see how #3 can be converted to #1 so you don't have a silly .". but I don't think #1 should happen if what you really mean is #2.
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Thank you. That was doing my head in. Annoys me when people miss that comma!
Actually it's the other way around. Americans put everything inside quotation marks, British put sentence punctuation outside of speech marks.
Hope it wasn't an expensive school because they were clearly teaching you using a US English style-guide.
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Caporegime
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I'm getting my definition and styleguide from the MHRA Style Guide, which is the guide used at all top UK universities for proper academic material/research. I'm not sure you can get a more definitive guide on the rules of UK-English formatting... and no, business guides do not count. Most people at the businesses I've worked for can barely construe a simple sentence.
Caporegime
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For academic material or research then you're probably right. The point remains that the rules become hazy - or even intentionally ignored - in other areas.
The OP talks about the need for a structured and 'general' form of rule over grammar/syntax, though... and if such a thing does exist, it's almost certainly in the rules and styleguides of academic departments. After all, they represent the most formal form of writing, no? Journalism and professional editing/copy/writing all takes its standards from academia. As for writers of fiction... well, they have creative license to bend and treat grammar as they wish.
We have a winner.
Also:
BrE encloses the period; AmE places it outside. That is probably a slight generalization.
No, seriously, stop getting it wrong.
British-English always puts periods after the quotation marks.
Jack Said: "I hate Firefox, Chrome is better".
You can swap out the colon for a comma depending on the structure of the overall sentence and whatever is most appropriate, i.e. depending on subordinate clauses; how long the quote is; the nature of the quote (i.e. listing or detailing something).
But the full-stop always falls outside the quotation marks in British-English. The only exception is with question and exclamation marks (i.e. a specific inflection of the speech itself). Ordinary sentence punctuation is outside.
British-English always puts periods after the quotation marks.
Jack Said: "I hate Firefox, Chrome is better".
You can swap out the colon for a comma depending on the structure of the overall sentence and whatever is most appropriate, i.e. depending on subordinate clauses; how long the quote is; the nature of the quote (i.e. listing or detailing something).
But the full-stop always falls outside the quotation marks in British-English. The only exception is with question and exclamation marks (i.e. a specific inflection of the speech itself). Ordinary sentence punctuation is outside.
No it doesn't: it depends on the nature of what is in the quotes, and what is after them. The full stop goes inside the quotes if what is said in them ends the bit inside the quotes and the sentence as a whole. If the sentence continues after the speech (common if a bit of speech splits a description of the talking) then a full stop will look silly. If the sentence finishes after the speech, but the part inside the quotes is incomplete, then the full stop would go outside the quotes.
As for the use of commas before the the speech, that's US English. Proper English almost always uses a colon (there are exceptions, as you would expect, depending on what is being said and how). Usually the bit inside the quotes is a subordinate clause of the bit before : "Jack says" is followed by what Jack says. Since the second is dependant on the first, it gets a colon.
M