I recently found this
fascinating story of a legacy of typesetting that still creates a difference
between American and British punctuation. Proofreaders have to stay mindful of
it when dealing with American conventions.
In the past, compositors (people
who lay out printed material with type) found that the small pieces of type
would not break off the end of a sentence, so the full stops (periods in the
US) and commas would not break off either. For this reason they made the rule that
made the rule that full stops and commas had to be placed inside quotation marks. This rule became the convention for how to
place commas and full stops in regard to quotation marks.
Then, in the 1900s the Fowlers
Brothers campaigned for full stops and commas to be placed outside quotation marks, except for direct speech. This was so the
grammar rules would follow logic rather than typesetting convenience. This new
rule was adopted for UK English. Its advantage is that placing the full stops and
commas outside quotation marks makes it clear that what is inside the quotation
marks is a quote or highlighted word and not direct speech.
However, the US did not adopt
the rule change. So to this day, UK English follows the rule that full stops
and commas go outside quotation marks
except in direct speech e.g. “That movie was terrible,” said Mark. But US
English, they still go inside.
For example:
(US English) I can never
remember how to spell “ecstasy.”
(UK English) I can never
remember how to spell “ecstasy”.
This rule applies only to full
stops and commas. In both UK and US English all other punctuation, such as semicolons,
colons and dashes, always go outside
quotation marks. Moreover, some American-based conventions, such as the APA
reference style, have adopted the UK rule of full stops and commas outside
quotation marks in order to differentiate highlighted words and quotes taken
from sources from direct speech.
Source
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-to-use-quotation-marks
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