Dear Professor Persnickety,
“i have always been taught that you put the punctuation in side the quotations, but the quiz says I’m wrong. Say it ain’t so!”
Yours,
Quizzical about Question and Quotation Marks (QQQ)
Dear Tri-Q,
You were taught correctly regarding periods and commas. Question marks and exclamation marks depend on the context. Look at these two sentences:
I said, “What is for dinner?”
Did she say, “I want quail for dinner”?
In the first case, the question mark goes inside, since the person being quoted is asking the question. In the second case, the quotation isn’t a question, but the enclosing sentence is, so the question mark goes outside.
So here’s the bonus question. What about this sentence?
I asked, “Did we eat quail tonight?”
or
I asked, “Did we eat quail tonight”?
or
I asked, “Did we eat quail tonight?”?
Obviously the last one looks pretty weird. So which of the first two is correct? It’s the first (inside) one. Why? I’m not sure, but that’s just how it’s done. Got it?
So QQQ, don’t go egg the home of whoever taught you to put punctuation inside question marks, just realize that the rule isn’t absolutely.
–PP