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MrsM
Please check the proof copy of your exam paper
and sign against your name.
Awkward pause
Junior Lecturer
I am afraid that there are mistakes.
MrsM is genuinely shocked.
Junior Lecturer
The full stop should be INSIDE the quotation marks.
MrsM is aghast
MrsM
The Examinations Officer has specified
that it should be OUTSIDE the quotation marks.
Junior Lecturer
Well, he is wrong.
MrsM’s eyes grow as large as saucers.
Nobody EVER questions the Examinations Officer
and especially his opinion on punctuation.
MrsM
He has stipulated that the full stops
should be outside the quotation marks
and he feels very strongly about it.
Junior Lecturer
Well, I feel VERY strongly about it too.
I have researched this issue in great detail.
MrsM
I think this conversation is moving above my pay-grade…
MrsM goes to see her friend,
the Deputy Examinations Officer,
and asks his advice.
They decide that there is only one answer:
a joust in the long corridor outside the offices.
The Deputy Examinations Officer
suggests that T Shirts are made available
so that staff can indicate if they are
Insiders or Outsiders.
Just another thing to organise...
Sigh...
Please check the proof copy of your exam paper
and sign against your name.
Awkward pause
Junior Lecturer
I am afraid that there are mistakes.
MrsM is genuinely shocked.
Junior Lecturer
The full stop should be INSIDE the quotation marks.
MrsM is aghast
MrsM
The Examinations Officer has specified
that it should be OUTSIDE the quotation marks.
Junior Lecturer
Well, he is wrong.
MrsM’s eyes grow as large as saucers.
Nobody EVER questions the Examinations Officer
and especially his opinion on punctuation.
MrsM
He has stipulated that the full stops
should be outside the quotation marks
and he feels very strongly about it.
Junior Lecturer
Well, I feel VERY strongly about it too.
I have researched this issue in great detail.
MrsM
I think this conversation is moving above my pay-grade…
MrsM goes to see her friend,
the Deputy Examinations Officer,
and asks his advice.
They decide that there is only one answer:
a joust in the long corridor outside the offices.
The Deputy Examinations Officer
suggests that T Shirts are made available
so that staff can indicate if they are
Insiders or Outsiders.
Just another thing to organise...
Sigh...
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I think I am an insider!
ReplyDeleteDo let us know the outcome (income?) of the jousting....
ReplyDeleteI'm an outie (thought I wouldn't joust over it).
ReplyDeleteI feel that MrsM needs a light blue UN hard hat for this tricky situation
ReplyDelete'Might it be possible to be both inside and outside?'.
ReplyDeleteMetaphysics not my strong point.
MrsM might like to know that the terms for indicating where a round has hit the target in rifle shooting are Inner, Outer, Magpie, Bull.
ReplyDeleteBut you all know that anyway I suppose
Or perhaps it was Outer, Inner, Magpie, Bull ...
ReplyDeleteDear Readers,
ReplyDeleteI just want to reassure you that I do live with MrM and we do TALK to each other.
As a copy editor, literary scholar and sad person who concerns herself with such things, I find myself jumping up onto the fence. It all depends, of course, on the context, whether the matter enclosed within the quotation marks is a sentence or reported speech (inside) or merely a phrase/clause/partial sentence which has been quoted within a longer sentence (outside) ... I know, I know, I spend too much time in the company of Hart's Rules and should get out more - I will go and consult a train timetable immediately.
ReplyDeletePomona x
What a dilemma!!! But what fun... a jousting match in the corridor.(Especially for someone like me, who loves to use as much punctuation as possible!)
ReplyDeleteIn my other life as an editor (!) I've come across this problem many times. It all depends on whether you're using British or American style. Is your Junior Lecturer American by any chance?
ReplyDeleteK x
Will you be organising Lynne Truss to be the referee?
ReplyDeleteOh Alice, how funny. It is good to know that greater minds than my own are undecided on this matter. I thought Pomona's comments were rather interesting, now I have some intellectual reasoning to back up my indecisiveness.
ReplyDeleteThe Times Style Guide offers this guidance: Punctuation marks go insie the inverted commas if they relate to the words quoted, outside if they relate to the main sentence. When necessary use single inverted commas inside double inverted commas.
ReplyDeleteI hope this helps!
Apologies for the typo in previous comment. i should also have added that the latest edtion of Fowler's Modern English Usage rightly says: All sign of punctuation used with quoation marks must be placed accoring to the sense. If an extract ends with a point or exclamation or interrogation sign, let that point be included before the closing quotation mark; but not otherwise. When there is one quotation within another, and both end with the sentence, put the punctuation marks before the first of the closing quotation marks. (Several examples are then given.)
ReplyDeleteI should like to offer the other option - that of Miss K who thinks that punctuation is all a waste of time anyway.
ReplyDeleteme, I'm for as many full stops as possible wherever they are...........
Or put the example up here and let us decide ;-) As Pomona says, doesn't it rather depend on the context?
ReplyDeleteI just love this debate. I am feeling so smug because I know I am right. The context is the deciding factor! Pomona - I need to join your excursion! Bobby x
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm with Pomona - I also live with a puntuation fanatic - it depends on the context. But isn't the whole thing so wonderfully typical of academic life - a case of don't shoot the admin person though!
ReplyDeleteOooh not sure but quite vital on an exam paper
ReplyDeleteBut in the grand scheme of life it is all so trivial. I love the idea of a joust to settle a disagreement, wouldn't it make parliament so much more exciting!
Thomas is right - I was going to say just the same thing, in my own words of course.
ReplyDeleteMay I suggest Shirts vs. Skins?
I am late but with Pomona and Thomas. And lovely Bb!
ReplyDeleteSometimes they should be inside and sometimes outside don't you think?
ReplyDeleteEG: I didn't the way he said 'Outside'.
or
'Those full stops should be inside.'
(Sorry, I used to be hot on punctuation but like to have all options covered these days and to be creative with it.)
When I took my driving test and was asked what the arrows on the bollards mean, and I replied 'Pass both sides', I received a withering glance from my examiner.And failed.
Is that relevant to this matter? It must be. It just popped up in my head. Must be the 'both or either question.
oh my that brings me back... I was in the middle of a similar ongoing 'in vs out' war between a copywriter and an opinionated client for months and months during my working life... I think they were still working when I left the company to have my first child.
ReplyDeleteLet us know the outcome, please
I like junior lecturer a lot. Not only is he correct, but s/he feels strongly enough to stand up for appropriate punctuation placement.
ReplyDeleteThe full stop goes outside of the quotation mark.
ReplyDeleteI will neither hear nor believe this ludicrous discussion about inside full stops [question marks, exlamation marks and the like from the quotation go inside, but they are a whole different kettle of ball game]
Pomona phrased it so much more eloquently than I would have been able to but yes, I think it would all depend upon context.
ReplyDeleteI feel this may need to go to arbitration.
Although - someone mentioned 'shirts vs. skins'. May I suggest young lecturer be 'shirts'? Or does ths make me a (not so young anymore) letcherer??
ReplyDeleteCan I have an 'it all depends upon the context' shirt please?
ReplyDeleteNo, Kristina is right. In American punctuation the stop always goes inside the quote, no matter what the sense is. I believe it's otherwise in British punctuation.
ReplyDelete-Another Christina
Doesn't it depend on whether you are quoting the end of someone elses sentence or you have arrived at the end of your own sentence? I think that's what i mean.
ReplyDelete