Please check my grammar

Is it ok to write in a poem...

"Lets play football, Daniel", is what he said, ....

Now should the comma next to the speech marks be inside, or outside the speech marks? Is it ok to have it outside?

Thanks!

 

I believe that the comma should be inside the quotation marks but I'm not enough of an expert myself to be certain. Also, there should be an apostrophe in the first word (Let's) as it is a contraction of the words "Let us."
Jack

 

You are correct. The comma goes inside the quotation marks.

 

"When in doubt, leave it out" There is no need for a comma after "Daniel".

 

Would it also be correct to use some periods?

"Lets play football, Daniel." is what he said.

 

I'll go along with that.

 

If you use a period after Daniel (or whatever else the last word of a quote may be), then you would be starting a new sentence with the next word. That would be appropriate if the sentences read:
"Let's play football, Daniel." That's what he said.

 

I do stand corrected, gkillion; there is no need for the second comma in this case.
The second comma would have been necessary had the sentence read:
"Let's play football, Daniel," suggested Bill and Ted simultaneously.

 

Personally, I'd leave it outside.

My thinking is that the punctuation inside the quotes should have been present in the original text. Apparently in this instance the comma wasn't present in the original.

Instead, it looks like the comma punctuates the larger sentence in which the original quotation is now embedded.

But what do I know? I thought that grammar was anal and boring in high school and didn't pay very much attention to it. I haven't studied it since. But I read voraciously and have acquired a weak grammatical sense by osmosis.

But basically, it seems to me that anything that looks good and reads smoothly will pass, 99% of the time. Especially in poetry.

 

Perhaps our Commonwealth friends can confirm or correct this, but my impression is that comma-inside-quotes is American style, and comma-outside-quotes is Commonwealth style. If so, then both are correct, but in separate venues.

 

I believe Bill Huffman is right. There would be a period at the end of the quote and it would be inside the quotation mark. "Let's play football, Daniel." is a sentence and should be followed by a period. There would also be a period at the end of the sentence containing the quote.

 

1. You can do anything you want to do in a poem if you have a reason to do it.

2. The comma would be on the inside in this case. However, unless interrupted, a period or (full stop) might be in order here.

I would refer you to a wonderful and fun book that answers all such questions, including the differences between British and American usage...

EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES

 

No. It should be, instead:

• "Lets play football, Daniel," is what he said, ....

Most other posts in this thread go beyond the narrow focus of your thread-starting question. The simple answer -- regardless in what other ways the larger issues could be addressed or approached -- is that the comma belongs inside the quotes. Most style manuals will confirm this.

 

Re: Re: Please check my grammar

While I understand your desire to address solely the question of the first post, it is incorrect and misleading to suggest the comma, in this situation, belongs inside the quotes.

The placement of punctuaton inside or outside quotation marks is often a matter of style or opinion.

However, the answer to Newbie's question is that the comma belongs neither inside nor outside the quotes.

 

This whole conversation is a great example of why I loathe the rule-less, yet harshly strict, world of proper grammer.

This thread perfectly illustrates what a big, stinkin', mess it is.

 

"Lets play football, Daniel", is what he said, ....

is the original post and is correct in its form as posted in that the ellipses connote additional prose left out for either editorial or brevity's sake.

As we are referring to a poem, not delineated as the poster's original work quotes would be used to indicate dialog by a character/player in the poem. If an original work other than the poster's is being offered then the quotes and commas should appropriately fall as indicated in the original text.

my thoughts....

 

While you may or may not be correct, that's simply not an option, given the thread-starting question, because it goes beyond the scope of said question. Now that you've stated it that way, I realize that I should have prefaced what I wrote with "If there is to be a comma at all..." My point is that I was not attempting, like you and so many others here, to debate or even address whether a comma even belonged. That wasn't the thread-starter's question. So to address it, therefore, goes beyond its scope.

It's not just my desire, it is the only appropriate thing to do. We have nowhere near enough information from the thread-starting post to do much else. As I've just pointed-out, above, all comments made here -- including your own -- which attempt to address the broader issues are interesting, but are outside the scope of the thread-starting question. Period.

No, it's not... at least not in the United States. It is now you who misleads.

Yes, if one debater is from the U.S. and the other is from the U.K.; or if both debaters are from either the U.S. or the U.K., but are discussing the stylistic differences between the two countries. To characterize the differences as something of a personal preference, with no regard to country, really is misleading.

In the U.K., Canada, and most any other place that is under the influence of the British educational system, punctuation around quotation marks nearly always follows logic -- even for commas and periods. In that sense, the British system is easier to remember because there are few exceptions to the basic logic rule.

However, any professional U.S. copy editor or typographer will tell you that while the U.S. also uses the very same logic rules as the U.K. for pretty much all punctuation around quotation marks, periods and commas in the U.S. -- perhaps insensibly, I admit -- always go inside the quotation marks, regardless of logic. Always. There are exceptions, of course... such as, for example, when a parenthetical reference follows the quotation; but then we begin to wander outside the scope of the thread-starting question, so I'll say no more about that here.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the placement of punctuation marks other than periods and commas typically follows the logic of the sentence; and the general rule that quotation marks should be right next to (or should accompany) the quoted text, or the text set apart as a title. For example, whenever one must use a question mark or an exclamation point with a sentence that ends in a quotation, one follows the dictates of logic in determining where to place the question mark or exclamation point. If the question mark or exclamation point is part of the quotation itself, then one places it inside the quotation marks; but if the question mark or exclamation point governs the sentence as a whole, but not the material being quoted, then one places it outside the quotation marks.

• Have you read the book "Road to Happiness"?
  
  No, but I finally got around to reading "Are You Healthy?"

But, alas, I, too, have now ventured beyond the scope of the thread-starting question...

...but only because you insisted on doing so, while misleading the reader along the way.

The bottom line is: Assuming a comma should even be present at all, the correct placement of said comma -- at least in the United States -- is as I stated earlier:

• "Lets play football, Daniel," is what he said, ....

Even correcting the word "Lets" to "Let's," while correct, goes beyond the scope of the thread-starting question, which asked, simply:

• Now should the comma next to the speech marks be inside, or outside the speech marks? Is it ok to have it outside?

And the answer is no, it is not okay -- at least not in the United States -- to have it outside, as I originally stated. Any speculation regarding the comma's right to be there in the first place is irrelevant. If it's there at all, then it belongs inside the quotation marks... at least in the U.S.

In paragraph 6.10 of the Quotations section of the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition, the stylistic difference between the U.S. and the U.K. with regard to treatment of periods and commas next to quotation marks is explained. Moreover, said manual clearly states that the proper method within the U.S. is as I have explained it, above.

I first read about it was some 30+ years ago in a 1970-something edition of the AP Stylebook... which, I might add, also clearly states that the proper method within the U.S. is as I have explained it, above.

According to legend, the whole business of placing the period and comma inside the quotation marks, no matter what, is something of a historical typographical accident dating back to the days when type was cast and hand set. Apparently, U.S. typesetters found that the extremely delicate periods and commas tended to become misaligned more easily if they were at the very end of the sentence, outside of the quotation marks. Placing them inside of the quotation marks, legend has it, tended to secure and stabalize those delicate periods and commas better. So, allegedly, U.S. typesetters adopted the convention of doing so, regardless of the sentence's logic.

But there is some doubt as to whether this legend is true. Doubters ask -- and reasonably so -- why typesetters in the U.S. would have found the problem any more irritating and/or unweildy than those in the U.K. (who had been doing it longer, I might add). Additionally, the legend defies logic regarding sentences that don't end with a quotation mark -- which is most of them. Without a quotation mark to the right of a period at the end of a sentence, wouldn't said sentence's delicate period be just as vulnerable as a period to the right of a quotation mark? If so, then why so deviate from logic just to protect such a small percentage of a work's periods?

So the old handset typography explanation is probably just urban legend or flat-out myth. If so, then it's not completely clear -- not even according to the Chicago Manual of Style -- why the stylistic difference between the U.S. and the U.K. regarding periods and commas around quotation marks exists.

But exist it does! Therefore, it's simply wrong -- and misleading -- to suggest that it's merely a matter of debate or personal preference. There are rules. They're unambiguous... at least if you know what country you're in; and they need to be followed.

 

Exactly.

 

Or spelling, either, apparently.

And there's nothing "rule-less" about it. Nor harshly strict. But it's easy enough to follow if one bothers to actually learn it.

That's simply not true. It's not a mess at all. Various stylebooks explain it well enough, and there are manifold web references. It's no accident that most copy editors, even when they work for different publications, are all pretty much on the same page... no pun intended. The English language has rules. They're worth learning. They're not all that complicated (though, as I know better than most, they're easy to forget and become sloppy about following).

While it's correct that the ellipses indicates that more is coming, whatever it is doesn't affect the placement of the comma... that is, if there's even supposed to be a comma at all. But, again, even wondering that is outside the scope of the thread-starting question and is, therefore, irrelevant here.

This answer, while well thought-out, assumes far more than the information given in the thread-starting post allows us to assume; and, moreover, is far, far outside the scope of the thread-starting question in any case. That said, the fact that it is a poem may very well trump all other theories, as Jodokk suggested. With poetry, it can be fair to argue that all grammatical bets are off since deviation from standards itself can be part of the art.

 

Apparently, I misspelled something in that post that I'm not aware of. At any rate, don't even get me started on the spelling of English words.

It makes so little sense (because we import the spelling of some words from all over the world and other reasons) that only vast amounts of reading and memorizing could allow even the most intelligent amoung us to be even a mediocre speller. It is a lousy system to say the very least.

Almost every rule that exists in the spelling and pronunciation is broken in some form or another constantly. To me, it seems like insanity.

As for your take on grammer, I'm glad you think its consistent. And, if it is consistant as you say, then I say that it is a chaotic and unruly consistency at best .

Edit Note: You wanna hear something funny? I misspelled consistent and had to edit this post.