1. Longer answer: well, technically, only commas and periods have to go inside the quotation marks no matter what. Question marks, exclamation points, semicolons, ellipses, etc can go outside if they're the writer's addition, inside if they're part of the original quotation. With periods and commas, uh...
Shorter answer: I have no idea because it makes no objective sense whatsoever.
But it's one of those things where periods and commas outside the quotation marks just look really. wrong. to the average American reader. (At least of my generation. More liberal rules may have been gaining hold since I was taught.) As in, that's not just nonstandard usage in American English; it's technically incorrect. So, yes. To me, something like "He said, 'It doesn't matter'." is as painful to look at as, say, "alright." ;)
I haven't lived in one place for more than a year since I was eighteen. That's got to have had some effect.
Exactly! It's kind of horrible to think about. Since I left home at eighteen, the longest I've ever lived in one place was at my last apartment, and that was about thirteen months. Everywhere else was around nine months tops, and often less. That is just inhuman.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2011-03-29 02:57 am (UTC)Shorter answer: I have no idea because it makes no objective sense whatsoever.
But it's one of those things where periods and commas outside the quotation marks just look really. wrong. to the average American reader. (At least of my generation. More liberal rules may have been gaining hold since I was taught.) As in, that's not just nonstandard usage in American English; it's technically incorrect. So, yes. To me, something like "He said, 'It doesn't matter'." is as painful to look at as, say, "alright." ;)
I haven't lived in one place for more than a year since I was eighteen. That's got to have had some effect.
Exactly! It's kind of horrible to think about. Since I left home at eighteen, the longest I've ever lived in one place was at my last apartment, and that was about thirteen months. Everywhere else was around nine months tops, and often less. That is just inhuman.