Illustration for Quotation Marks: Where the Full Stop Goes

Quotation Marks: Where the Full Stop Goes

ByNathan Cole

She called it “remarkable.” or She called it “remarkable”.

Both are correct, in different countries, and the difference has a genuinely odd origin.

The two conventions

American: full stops and commas go inside the quotation marks. Always — whether or not they belong to the quoted material.

British: punctuation goes inside only if it belongs to the quoted material, and outside if it belongs to the surrounding sentence. This is sometimes called logical punctuation, which tells you what its advocates think of the alternative.

  • American: He said the plan was “flawed.”
  • British: He said the plan was ‘flawed’.
  • Both: She asked, “Are you coming?” — the question mark belongs to the quotation, so it goes inside either way.

Where the American rule came from

Metal type. In hand-set printing, a full stop or comma was a small, fragile piece of lead. Sitting outside a quotation mark at the end of a line, it was liable to break or shift. Tucking it inside the quotation mark protected it.

The typesetting problem disappeared a century ago. The convention stayed, which is a fair description of how a good deal of punctuation works.

Colons, semicolons and the rest

Here both conventions agree:

  • Colons and semicolons always go outside: She called it “remarkable”; I disagreed.
  • Question and exclamation marks go inside if they belong to the quotation, outside if they belong to the sentence: Did she really say “remarkable”?

Single or double

American English uses double marks outside and single inside. British English traditionally does the reverse, though double is now common in British publishing too.

  • American: She said, “He called it ‘remarkable’ twice.”
  • British: She said, ‘He called it “remarkable” twice.’

Scare quotes

Quotation marks around a word you are not actually quoting signal distance — this is what they call it, not what I would call it.

The “improvements” made everything slower. The marks do the sneering, which is efficient and easy to overuse. Two in a paragraph and the writer sounds contemptuous of everything.

They should never be used for emphasis. A sign reading “Fresh” fish promises the opposite of what it intends.

Which to use

Follow your audience. American readers, American style. British or Commonwealth readers, British style. If you have no house style and no clear audience, pick one and be consistent — which is, once again, the only rule that every authority agrees on.

Checked against Merriam-Webster, the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook. Spotted an error? Tell us — see our editorial policy.

Nathan Cole writes the adjective guides and word lists on Grammar Simplified. Every guide he publishes is checked against Merriam-Webster for spelling and usage, the Chicago Manual of Style for punctuation, and the AP Stylebook where a convention is specific to web writing. Where a rule is genuinely disputed among those authorities, he says so in the guide rather than picking a side quietly. Corrections are welcome and get acted on — see the editorial policy.

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