Positioning of quotation marks in conjunction will full stops

[SurreyGuy]

When writing an article that contains a few continuous quotes, where does one put the full stops at the end of paragraphs in relation to the quotation marks?

This is how I have written it, but someone told me that my positioning of full stops/quotation marks is incorrect -

Dave said, "When I first saw the dog I wasn't sure what to do, so I just froze. However, when I thought about it, I relaised that that was the worse thing I could have done".

"Once I had stopped, the dog seemed to calm down and was extremeley friendly towards me. I wish I had stood still in the first place".

[mallam]

Quizmonster (for it is to you, Quizmonster, that this reply is addressed)

Many thx for the invitation to join the privileged users of your sobriquet QM, and esp. for the invitation to sort this out! (If it is one.) I said on another thread I was beginning to think I was the kiss of death to every thread I posted on. I was responding to someone who said I made sense. I said I'm immensely grateful to anyone who thinks I make sense. For the life of me I can�t see why you don�t. You say you�re not that concerned, but you should be concerned that you don�t.

What in the name of HM Inspectors in Lunacy makes you think I have decided that ANY two of you QMs are the same person despite your different names? I address Quizmonkey in the second person and refer to you in the third, and say a site search has revealed the existence of Quizmouse and would no doubt reveal more QMs. It is obvious from that that I had not come across Quizmaster or any other of those other QMs. I also say that until his (Quizmonkey�s) appearance, the QM on this thread was you (Quizmonster), and I was just copying Heathfield�s appellation (QM) for you (Quizmonster).

[mallam]

So, QM1 (by your grace and favour) I doubt your claim that you know what you wrote, since you are blind to my demonstration that you had indeed got the expressions BrE and AmE the wrong way round. I never said and I do not say now that you do not use the 'rules' as set out ,whether jointly or severally, in A Study of Standard English and Approach to Standard English, or in any other standard book that we could agree on,. I have seen no evidence in these posts that you do not adhere to these particular rules which you don�t seem to be able to see that we do actually agree on: the only thing that was ever at issue was your unfortunate lapsus calami reversing the expressions BrE and AmE , and then only when you first used them. That was plain to see. As I said above, it was your attempt to stand the whole debate on its head that made my head spin. Your examples themselves were spot on, I said. I also surmised that like me you had checked the guide Heathfield gave us a link to, since you used the (admittedly common) Kennedy example given there. As I tried to make crystal clear, I have always been in total agreement with the �logical� view espoused there, and you have given every indication that you are too. The reversal of the expressions BrE and AmE just before you gave examples which made your agreement clear was what was confusing. Is all.

So what could be less surprising than that I have long made the same �concessions to modernity� as you mention here.

[Quizmonster]

Enough already!

[mallam]

Phew! (If I may take you to mean you think I did sort it out.)

[mallam]

Are you satisfied with this, SurreyGuy? I do assure you it has been worth persevering with.


Any objections, QM1...n, heathfield, fredpuli, et al.? (Note Oxford comma. Surely no objections to that, folks?)

[SurreyGuy]

Pretty much, Mallam, yes thanks.

However, the only part of my query that hasn't been answered is whether the second and third quotation marks in my original paragraphs (laid out as the website I write for prefers) were unnecessary or not.

[Quizmonster]

If you are told by your bosses to do something in a particular way, SurreyGuy, you have little choice but to obey. However, I cannot imagine anyone else in the publishing business expecting you to do any such thing with material such as you provided. It should all have been contained in one paragraph, so the query need not have arisen under normal circumstances.
I have already said how multi-paragraph quotes are normally treated...with opening quotation marks at the start of every paragraph but closing ones only at the end of the final one. Presumably, therefore, what they will want is for you to remove the marks after 'done'.

[mallam]

Agreed. (Tho to avoid confusion I would say "the mark", i.e. the double inverted commas before the full stop, after 'done'.) And of course leave in place the ones at the beginning of the next para if they insist on a new para.

This is what you get with editors. Blame all this fiddle-faddle we've been thru on them!

[TCL-MUMPING]

Am I alone in using to-day, to-night and to-morrow?

[mallam]

Not among the over-eighties perhaps, TCL. Sorry, as they so revoltingly say inThe Weakest Link.

[SurreyGuy]

Thanks Quizmonster and mallam.

I can't remember punctuation being this "complicated" at school!

I might just say, "sod society's convention and the way it 'should be done', I am my OWN person and shall do it MY way"! :o)

[heathfield]

Ah me! The point of punctuation (no pun intended) is to clarify meaning in the written word. Even slight changes in punctuation can produce a huge change in meaning, as above posts demonstrate.
Fashions change. It seems QM (Quizmonster is of an age with me. I wonder if he remembers, as I do, being taught in school that a comma should appear before and/or after quotation marks when the quotation forms part of a sentence. The same rule applied to parentheses. But these days we are advised against the use of those commas. But there was reasoning behind their former use.

''What happened next?'', asked the Inspector.
Poirot answered, ''Then, he left the room.''

Note the pause the comma creates before the quotation marks in Poirot's answer, If the sentence were being read out loud without that handy pause, listeners might think that the great detective himself was no longer present.

However you punctuate, it's all to do with clarification of meaning (as I told the James' family!)

[SurreyGuy]

PRECISELY! :o)

I was also taught to put commas before and after quotes and still do just that.

[Quizmonster]

Oh yes, H! Did my earlier reference to addresses jog your memory about the complexities we had to deal with?
I quote from one of the books I I mentioned. From...

97 Main Street,
Kilmarnock.
9th May, 1942.

to...

Messrs. Wilson Bros.,
73 Church Street,
Kilmarnock.

I especially like the ., after Bros. All wonderful stuff.

At a guess, TCL, I'd say you're in a very tiny group with your particular hyphenation nowadays.

[mallam]

Once again we are in total agreement, QM1. Even to my ageist parameter above? But I did love the old Bros.,-type fun. I didn't give it up so very long ago, I'm afraid.

[mallam]

Sorry, I meant to say Qm1 and H. Something told me from the start that the SussexU page was your doing, H. Similar online pp of mine have died. Prob wouldn't be greatly admired for posting them here!

[TCL-MUMPING]

I was taught to use a comma when quotation marks are used but it appears that colons are now used. By the way, I did use a normal Biro at school and not a quill as some folk may think...

[mallam]

H's SussexU page vindicates your education, TCL. If colons are now used, it is not by me without good reason, or by anyone on this thread, as far as I can remember.

Sorry about the quill assumption. And not in the Weakest-Link usage this time: I believe you.

[mallam]

BTW I too was was taught to use a comma with quotation marks, but even where it seemed ridiculous. Not quite everywhere, so e.g. 'He said "No."' was thought to be all right, so it was conceded that that was sufficiently different from 'He said no.', but as Heathfield says above, if the quotation in that position formed part of a sentence it had to be e.g. 'He said, "No, it's not."' I don't really see that even Heathfield's Poirot example above is a convincing reason for nostalgia for that carry-on.

I dropped it aeons ago in favour of the practice of only putting commas where they are absolutely necessary, when I had learnt languages which insist on commas before relative clauses, whether defining or non-defining, thus losing the distinction in writing in spite of its presence in speech. And then disconcertingly learnt languages which don't have that distinction in either, and having the literally unedifying task of trying to teach it in those languages. Having learnt the importance of NOT putting a comma before defining relative clauses, I could only stomach the absurdity of putting in
purely decorative and actually misleading commas in those languages whose speakers would otherwise think me illiterate.

When I was in a position to hold out for what I believed actually promoted literacy in English at least, the only language in which I have full native-speaker competence, I went through theses with a machete, chopping my way thru the forest of commas (and gaily re-splitting infinitives). Doggedly chanting Heathfield's mantra about clarification of meaning.

So Heathfield, it seems there are at least three of an age on here. Teach William and Henry, did you? What's this apostrophe after their surname?

[TCL-MUMPING]

With reference to colons, in to-day's papers

John Wilson, senior officer of the GMB union, said: �This is a body blow for UK manufacturing.� Daily Express

Responding to questions from peers, she said: "The allegations are indeed shocking but they are at this moment allegations...� The Mirror

Asked about his alleged suggestion that the rules could be bent, he said: ��Bent� to me means you will try to persuade the bureaucracy of the House to change them.� The Times