Quotation Device

The rules regarding quotation marks are clear: Commas and periods go inside the quotation mark, regardless of, as The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage notes, "grammatical logic." "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world,” said Rick, “she walks into mine." Question marks, exclamation points, and dashes go inside the closing quotation mark unless they’re not part of the actual quotation. What’s the most famous line in “All About Eve”? “Fasten your seat belt, it’s going to be a bumpy night!” Colons and semicolons go outside the quotation marks. He finally learned the identity of “Rosebud”: a sled. In American English single quote marks are used in only a few instances - and the only one that most of us ever encounter is when a quotation occurs within another quotation. “Deborah Kerr said her favorite line was, ‘Years from now, when you talk about this, and you will, be kind.’"

Note: In England and other countries that adhere to British English, commas and periods go outside the quotation marks. "Jerry”, she said, “don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars". So remember, if you're inside the United States, in most instances punctuation goes inside the quotations marks.

Comments

[Mike]

Another related and also interesting issue is that of the "thin space" that is supposed to separate a single quote from a "regular" double quotation mark, like in your Deborah Kerr example above.

[DigitalGhost]

The rules are clear? Usage might be improved by adhering to some 'grammatical logic'. As you point out in your 'double space after a period post, some rules arose due to typeface limitations, or manual typesetting practices.

Prescriptivism needs to die that long- promised death...

[Hank Lay]

You may be correct regarding US English usage, but I submit that we need to change in favor of the British in this case. In our "computer age" it can become crucial to include only the content being quoted within the marks. Adding other punctuation could affect present or future links to other text or sites. You never know anymore whether what you write will become part of some larger structure, and being imprecise within quotations can skew your meaning, or at least make some future editor's job harder. Let me quote from another of your articles: "Times change. Technology evolves. So should we."