Grammar is confusing enough for those of us in English-speaking countries, with multiple style guides, conventions that have fallen out of fashion, and rules people simply forget. If all that’s not enough, Americans also follow different rules than our English-speaking neighbors to the North.
I’m not talking about the random letter U Canadians like to throw into words or even how they want to spell words that should end in “ck” with a “que,” instead. I’m talking about their use of quotation marks and punctuation together.
Here in the U.S., periods and commas always go inside the quotation marks. In Canada (and Great Britain, incidentally), they go outside the quotation marks.
“Grammar is confusing,” the American said.
“It certainly is, eh”, the Canadian agreed.
How to remember where the punctuation goes
I’m going to steal a tip from my idol, the original Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty. It’s a U.S.-centric tip, but we Americans are self-centered types, so why not? (I can’t only pick on the Canadians in this post, right?)
Inside the U.S., commas and periods go inside the quotation marks.
Outside the U.S., they go outside.
Easy, eh? Er – Easy, right?
By the way, this rule applies even if you’re only putting quotes around one word and not the whole sentence.
For instance, in the U.S.: He called grammar “confusing.”
That example uses “floating” quotation marks, however, which are typically not the best way to say something. I can’t, however, think of one legitimate example to put random quotes around a word.
Better: He said that grammar was confusing.
Question marks and exclamation points
Throw this easy-to-remember rule out the window if you’re talking about question marks or exclamation points. Question marks and exclamation points go inside the quotes if they’re part of that specific question or statement, but not if they belong to the whole sentence.
For instance:
How do you spell the word “grammar”?
“Have you read that new blog about grammar?”
Or… “How do you spell the word ‘grammar’?” she asked.
The third example is correct because the question mark goes with the question, but not with the word grammar, specifically.
This is where Canadian and British writers have it easy, because they always put punctuation outside the quotes.
Single quotes, double quotes
While we’re on the topic of cultural differences, let’s discuss the use of quotes within quotes. I’m going to use the above example, because it’s not as easy as it looks to come up with a question involving a random word in quotation marks.
“How do you spell the word ‘grammar’?” she asked.
When you place quotation marks within quotation marks, the inner quotes should be single quotes. The British do it the opposite way:
‘I know how to spell the word “grammar”’, he said.
In the U.S., we use double quotation marks for speech, maybe because we like to talk a lot?
