FRIDAY GRAMMAR CHAT: WHERE DOES A PUNCTUATION GO?
A little reminder of where punctuation goes in certain sentence formations.
Alright, this may seem like a dead stupid question to try to answer, but I know I can't be the only one who stares at the end of a quote and wonder whether the punctuation is supposed to go inside or outside the end quote.
Or maybe I am the only one, but still I figured this might be a good topic for today's Grammar Chat. So, here goes.
WHERE DOES THE PUNCTUATION GO...
at the end of a quote?
Periods and commas go inside the quotes. All other punctuation goes outside the quotes.
Ex. John said, "Bears suck even though they're sometimes cute."
Ex. Is it true that John wrote an essay titled "Bears Really Suck"?
during a parenthetical phrase?
When a parenthetical comes at the end of a larger sentence, the punctuation goes outside the closing parenthesis. When a parenthetical sentence exists on its own, the punctuation goes inside the closing parenthesis.
Ex. John said that he thinks bears suck (even though his family crest is a large bear). (And honestly, bears aren't all that bad.)
after another punctuation?
So, when the last word of a sentence ends with a bit of punctuation, then you don't need to add another. Just leave the original punctuation as the final character.
Ex. I really wanna see the new play Have You Seen Mary?
Ex. My best friend works for Yahoo!
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