Logical Punctuation Rules

Strunk & White have a set standard for where periods go and where semi-colon's shouldn't. These standards are dogma to most copy-editors, writers, or regular editors but it really seems arbitrary in certain respects and gets in the way of better comprehension. The most common example is when you have the quote at the end of the sentence. Do you include the ending punctuation (i.e. period or question mark) within the quotation marks or not? Standard practice would say that the ending punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks, even if the quotation doesn't have the same ending punctuation. To me this makes no sense. You can't tell what sort of inflection should be on the quotation. For example:

Did Frank say, "there is no escape?"

Not the most common or eloquent phrase, but things like this do come up. To me the quotation in the sentence reads as if Frank is wondering whether or not there is an escape, not that Frank is making a statement that there is no escape. But that's how the rules work - the ending punctuation for the sentence gets attached to the quote. Instead of this, I usually put the sentence punctuation outside the quotes. If the quotation needs it, I'll add an exclamation or question mark within the quotes. The previous sentence would be rewritten as:

Did Frank say, "there is no escape"?

or if Frank was unsure if there was an escape, it could be stated as:

Did Frank say, "is there any escape?"?

Maybe it looks awkward with multiple question marks but I think it's read easier and quicker and makes more sense. And if you haven't noticed it yet, this is leading into a larger Punctuation::XML analogy. That will be next week.

—February 28th, 2005

• » Mexican Reference Stand-Off