But how about this: We know that before going home, “He went to the store.” Now that is misleading in that it suggests “He went to the store.” was a complete sentence that ended after the word “store” in the original text. That is not the case, and the quote has been falsified to the potential detriment of the reader.

However, as pointed out already, American convention on this matter is not logica.l

Mike McDougal: [...] “, usage [...]

Your example usage should use a close-quote not an open-quote, namely:

”,

Punctuation goes inside the quotes only if part of the quote.
Double space after a full stop (period).
Use the oxford comma.
Cross your sevens and the letter “z” when writing longhand.

I am an a software engineer and an attorney. Of course as a junior attorney, I do whatever my supervisor tells me to do.

Some busybody documentation “specialist” in Houston with some sort of official professional copywriting degree took exception to my quotation marks policy last year. She complained to my boss. He has a wry Scottish sense of humor. He told me, simply, to use the “correct” punctuation. That year I traveled to the UK five times. “Correct” punctuation depended on where my butt sat at the moment I was writing the documentation in question. The busybody complained again. I told my boss to ask the busybody to define “correctness” with regard to quotation marks, in a way that would be mutually acceptable to both sides of the pond. Unfortunately, she did not take the bait, and we were not entertained by her attempts to provide such a definition.

I was taught to use the 2AM Test: What will work best for your reader as s/he reads it at 2AM the morning when it is to be filed or heard? The American rule wins in such a situation.

2AM in the morning, you say? As opposed to 2AM in the evening? Sounds like the Department of Redundancy Department to me.

Steve2:
The linguistic logic of the “British rule” (I hadn’t realized it was an American/British thing before reading this post) is why this American prefers it stylistically, aesthetically, and functionally — and therefore, why this American uses it exclusively (and with parenthesis, not just quotation marks).And I do still double-space after periods, I spell Gandalf’s color with an “e” in all contexts, there is no apostrophe in the second-person plural pronoun, hyphenation is to taste, and the last entry in a list gets a comma (unless you’ve switched to semicolons because your list has nested lists).And if anyone tells me I’m incorrect, I do not care.Or rather, care only because I’ve deliberately chosen to use the style I prefer and hope that my example will lead others to make the same usage choices and thereby change what is customary usage and “correct”.

I, too, never realized that there was an “American/British” rule. I do know that putting punctuation inside the quotes is an old typesetter rule that has nothing to do with grammar.

I never, never put the period inside the quote at the end of sentence unless what I am quoting ends in period. Example: This is the “British rule”. That’s the way I do it. I makes much more sense than: This is the “American rule.”

As for double spacing after periods and colons, again an old rule for fixed width fonts. It doesn’t apply to modern fonts.

And yes, I also put a comma after the last entry before “and” in a list. That was taught as proper in the sheriff’s academy tho I did it well before then.

I also use tho, altho, thru … and I let my professors know that these were acceptable alternative spellings before writing the papers.

And here’s another grammar quagmire: when using an ellipsis, do you use three periods or four? Use three when connecting fragments and four when the missing fragment concludes the sentence.

As for the debate about commas and periods inside quotation marks, I say, when in America, use the American rule. When in Britain, use the British rule.

JimmyL: I’m kind of surprised by the seemingly overwhelming response in favor of the British rule.Almost all briefs I have read follow the American rule, and I think most (American) style guides suggest the same (Garner’s various books, Texas Rules of Form, which I don’t claim to be the last word on style). I see the logic of the British rule and the desire for accuracy.But has anyone ever been confused or misled by a comma/period that was not part of the original quotation yet was placed inside the quotation marks?(I’m sure someone will come up with an example.)Perhaps if the quoted material is not a full sentence (i.e., portions at the end are omitted) but a period is included as part of the quotation, then the reader is led to believe that the sentence ended when actually it did not?

When I was in high school I thought I couldn’t believe anything in the textbooks because the authors must have chosen their words carefully to end evenly in each line of each justified paragraph. But then I took print shop and discovered that the type machines magically justified each line!

But the thing I always wondered about was, I know people in Europe lived just fine before Columbus discovered America, and people used candles before they discovered electricity, but what the hell did people do before Newton discovered gravity? Did they glue furniture to the floor and use velcro boots to walk around? Life without gravity would have been difficult. And you don’t see it in any old paintings!

Albatross: I like to be curmudgeonly, too. I’m thinking of using the diaeresis more in my writing.

I use that, but only when I’ve got verbal diarrhea.

Learn something every day.

Said he, “No more of this.” In the second instance, a period after the last quotation mark would be redundant.

No, a second period is necessary, not redundant. The period inside the quotation marks only applies to (No more of this). You’ve got to have a second period to apply to the (Said he) and close the sentence. The interior of quotation marks is like a black box: what goes on inside them is completely isolated from what goes outside them. Such, at least, is my view of matters.

(American form)
Did he say “This is a nice cup of coffee?”

(Britishesque form)
Did he say “This is a nice cup of tea.”?

In the first example, how does the reader know the author was making a statement, not asking a question? Anyone who would sacrifice clarity for aesthetics has his priorities poorly placed.

Evidently people who are cool don’t double-space after periods, as we learned to do in typing class; and they don’t use semicolons either.

Double-spacing after periods is important in Microsoft Word, or on a typewriter. With better software it is better to let the software handle the spacing.

That is, until you have to write about some obscure part of St. Olaf’s Saga (and the software puts too much space between St. and Olaf)….

As for American vs British rule, I think that while the British rule seems more compelling logically and might provide more flexibility in punctuation, I think the question largely amounts to audience. What do you think your own audience will relate to better? If your audience spends a fair bit of time reading international publications, it might be worth sticking with the British rule. If not, the American rule will be less jarring.

I know that if I was asked to check a quote for accuracy I would flag “Professor Volokh ‘see[s] the value of the British rule.’” as inaccurate, because that is not the quote.

Under the American system which is correct. Should it be [.] to indicate that the punctuation, although necessary in my sentence, is not part of the quote, or just .?

Jones assured me, “You have nothing to worry about.”
Hale said, “Give me liberty or give me death!”
Still, Obama assures us, “We will be better off after this reform bill passes”!
What makes you think that your only choice is, “Give me liberty or give me death”?
He spoke of “blue skies,” “black nights,” and “green grass.”
He spoke over and over of “blue skies,” “black nights,” and “green grass”; I got bored and left.

About here, I started hearing this.

I would suspect that technology is going to drive this issue more than aesthetics, however. Simply put, if one is a reporter of a quote, the comma or period is put inside the quotation marks. If one is passing on the information, then the only items inside the quotation marks are exactly what is within the source text. In other words, if you’re typing it in, you put the period inside; if you’re cutting and pasting, you leave it outside.

As an example, I could say that I was at the meeting and heard him say, “wharrgarbl.”

Later, someone else might reply or comment that, according to me, he said, “wharrgarbl”.

What is not acceptible is the autotype function of inserting a left quotation mark for an initial apostrophe.

While I realize that using the British rule in the latter situation is not aesthetically perfect, to my eye, it looks even worse to use the American rule in such situations. So I just go with the lesser of two uglies.

Apperception: What happened to the law?

It has been East Anglicized since, “Earth in the Balance”.

Jones assured me, “You have nothing to worry about.”
Hale said, “Give me liberty or give me death!”
Still, Obama assures us, “We will be better off after this reform bill passes”!
What makes you think that your only choice is, “Give me liberty or give me death”?
He spoke of “blue skies,” “black nights,” and “green grass.”
He spoke over and over of “blue skies,” “black nights,” and “green grass”; I got bored and left.