This thread made me curious about the history of the convention to which Brad and DD refer. Does anyone know how accurate the following explanation is? 

"There are peculiar typographical reasons why the period and comma go inside the quotation mark in the United States. The following explanation comes from the 'Frequently Asked Questions' file of alt.english.usage: 'In the days when printing used raised bits of metal, "." and "," were the most delicate, and were in danger of damage (the face of the piece of type might break off from the body, or be bent or dented from above) if they had a '"' on one side and a blank space on the other. Hence the convention arose of always using '."' and ',"' rather than '".' and '",', regardless of logic." This seems to be an argument to return to something more logical, but there is little impetus to do so within the United States." (http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/quotation.htm#footnote)

Brian
________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brad Johnston [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, October 24, 2009 10:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Good Grief, Good Grammar

Good point, DD.

Or, tell the little dears to learn it the logical, reasonable, sensible way and then if they ever want to sell an article to the New York Times, they'll have three choices.

Slog through the NYT Style Book and make their work comply.

Send it in and hope the NYT copy editor will change it to suit.

If it comes up, defend it as "style and preference".

(You would not believe the number of authors who have defended bad grammar to me based on "style and preference", e.g., Stuart Woods defending, "Attila had been killed for fifty dollars" (without context, Herb).

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DD Farms <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Because you write to the style book's conventions, or you don't get published?

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Brad Johnston <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Good Grief, Good Grammar, by Dianna Booher, c.1988.

page 133: "Rules about quotation marks used in conjunction with commas and periods often bring resistance because they are illogical. Never mind, just learn them. Place commas and periods inside closing quotation marks -- regardless of meaning."

Nonsense. It is easy, logical, and meaningful to put quotation marks where they belong, at both ends of a quotation. Why would anyone struggle to teach it otherwise?

.brad.sat.24oct09.


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