Quotation Punctuation
Short Rule: Always put little marks (comma or period) to the left of double quotation marks, never to the right.
- Shakespeare is playing with the double meanings of the word "lie."
- When the speaker says "lie," he means both "tell an untruth" and "have sex."
Exceptions: Put big marks (colon, semicolon, question mark, exclamation point) to the right of double quotation marks, not to the left.
For Example:
- He wants to imagine himself an "untutored youth"; it's easier to believe that than to face the truth.
- What are the consequences of the fact that his beloved knows that his "days are past the best"?
- He even seems to think it's fine that he gives his love only "seeming trust"!
Exception to Exceptions: When the quotation includes a question mark or exclamation point that is essential to the meaning, put the question mark or exclamation point to the left of the double quotation mark.
For example:
- Apparently thinking the whole situation is a little odd, the speaker asks, "wherefore says she not she is unjust?"
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COMPLAINT: THE ILLOGIC OF IT ALL!
The original sin in all of this is the Short Rule (see above), which places punctuation that does not belong to the quotation inside the quotation marks. This SIN causes great pain, such as I am feeling at this moment because I am wasting my life away explaining something that is fundamentally stupid.
It doesn't have to be this way. Look at the following sentence from Great Tales from English History, by Robert Lacey, which first published in Great Britain in 2004, and then in the U.S. in 2005:
- For a dozen years before he wrote The Canterbury Tales Chaucer had lived over the Aldgate, or 'Old Gate', the most easterly of the six gates in London's fortified wall, and from his windows in the arch he had beeen able to look down on the changing scene. -- OH TO LIVE AND PUBLISH IN THE UK!!