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In the discussion found in this forum topic on Oxford quotes, a side topic was raised about the positioning of commas and periods relative to quotation marks.  I'm starting a new thread here for those interested in discussing this topic.

The practice of placing a comma or period inside of quotation marks is often called a "typesetters' quotation mark," or "typesetters' quote."  Note that in the preceding sentence, I placed both the comma and the period before the closing quotation mark...

..."typesetters' quotation mark,"

and

..."typesetters' quote."

In American English (that is, English as used in the United States, and to some extent, Canada), the typesetters' quote has become entrenched as a general rule that is rarely broken.  British English, however, is more flexible regarding the positioning of the quotation mark.  Most British English students are taught that the decision should be based on the logic of the sentence rather than on some arbitrary rule.  Thus, the British practice is often referred to as "logical quotation marks," or "logical quotes."  As you might guess by my usage, I'm a user of American English, so I tend to follow the typesetters' quote rule.

The practice of where to place a comma or period relative to a quotation mark is rooted in the traditions of typesetting with movable metal type.  In the early years of movable metal type presses, the small "sorts" used to make commas and periods were among the most problematic.  These thin pieces of metal could easily become dislodged in the forme (the assembled arrangement of metal type from which a page was printed).  Printers discovered through trial and error that commas and periods could be more reliably printed if they were routinely placed inside of quotation marks.

Advances in typesetting technology would eventually make the typesetters' quote rule unnecessary.  In the late 19th century, British scholars began arguing for the more logical use of quotation marks.  In particular, H.W. Fowler argued in The King's English that it is...

(From H.W. Fowler, The King's English, Chapter 4.)

For over a century, the later has prevailed in British English.  Unless the logic of the sentence is improved by placing the comma or period inside of a quotation mark, British writers tend to leave them outside of a quotation mark.  From this "logical quote" perspective, most of the time the punctuation is logically associated with the sentence that contains the quote, and not the quote itself.

American English users, perhaps because of a not-so-subtle desire to maintain a distance from the "King's English," have pretty much kept the typesetters' quote rule intact.  Most American English students today are taught that punctuation marks go inside of quote marks.  "Period."

Which usage do MacHeisters prefer: the "typesetters' quote" rule still embraced by American English users, or the "logical quote" rule followed by British English users?

"To be educated is to become more human."
- J. Lawrence Walkup

As mentioned in the other thread, I tend to use a combination of both. Sometimes the American style doesn't make sense (no wonder it's not called "logical"). But the American style also doesn't involve any thinking - one rule to rule them all. Using the British style requires some amount of thinking (and thus creeps in the scope of making errors).

To make the sentence look better, I tend to not have quoted words in the end of a sentence. For example, instead of saying something like:
Go to menu and click "Select" <-- the period within quotes may look odd here
say this instead:
Go to menu and click the "Select" option.

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My habit is to place the comma/period outside, but it just doesn't look/feel right, so I always try to go back and place it inside.

Another issue for me was the double-space after a sentence. When I went through school it was in the 80's and early 90's, and I was taught to do the double. I'm not sure why that is - other than old habits the teachers would not drop. From what I understand, it was only necessary to begin with due to old typewriters use of typefaces, not applying proper kerning.

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Yes, sometimes I will rephrase sentences to avoid having a period or comma inside of quote marks.  This is particularly true when it is clear that the punctuation is part of the quote.  For example...

Here, the period definitely belongs inside of the quote, but because it is part of the quote, there is a tendency to want to add the period after the quote as well to indicate the end of the sentence.  That is...

But double periods like this simply look odd to my eye, so to avoid this, I might recast the sentence thusly...

I suppose one could move the period in front of the "com" like so...

But in this case, the typesetters' quote presents another problem, where inserting the period inside of the quote might cause one to assume (incorrectly, in this case) that there should be two periods between Macheist and com.

"To be educated is to become more human."
- J. Lawrence Walkup

I always use the British English (which also happen to be the Swedish) format, where the punctuation is outside the quote, i.e. "I agree", he said.

I've never understood why you would put a punctuation inside a quote, when it wasn't there in the original source. Everything inside the quote should be exactly as it is in the cited source, but the American English style sometimes add punctuation inside a quote where it wasn't there in the original text.

Sure, as a typography nut, I might agree with the idea that the American English style looks better, since it doesn't have that much empty space that you get with a — text", text; instead of text," text. So yes, I think the American style cosmetically looks nicer, but it's so illogical and weird that I would never even think about using it.

Think Purple.

I always place punctuation inside quotations.  That's the way I was taught and, being a college student, I need to continue in that fashion or risk losing points on papers for grammer...
I do agree that it makes less sense to type/write this way, but it does look cleaner.

This is another one of those incredibly hard to break habits. BC (before computers) when typewriters were the norm, all the letters took exactly the same amount of space, like our current monospaced fonts, it was more difficult to see the spaces between sentences without the double space. It all has to do with readability. When a period takes as much space as a capital w, it gets really hard to see where a sentence ends and begins.

With the wonderful computers and millions of fonts that we have now, we can all be typesetters. There is an excellent book on this; The Mac is Not a Typewriter, by Robin Williams. It is a fabulous reference to help those of us who were tortured by typing teachers.

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To paraphrase myself in the other thread, commas and periods go inside quotation marks. Those who do otherwise should be locked up and set to The Hague.

Putting commas and periods outside the quotation marks just looks wrong.

Here is a question for those of you who use the so-called "logical" quotes. How would you write this sentence?

"I went to the store, but all I could find was this used package of grapefruit," he said.

Exactly the same as above with the comma and quotation mark transposed, or would you add a period before the quotation mark since that would be what the quoted person said?

"Nothing is impossible to someone who is impervious to reason."

Everyone knows greens are good for you.

Definitely, in the 'grapefruit' example, the comma comes after the quote, it doesn't make sense otherwise. Arguably there should be a period inside the quote as well, but that looks weird.

It's also interesting to see how to punctuate
He said "I went ...".
Here I would tend to put the period inside the quote, on the grounds that the end of the whole sentence (that begins with 'He said') also happens to be the end of the quoted sentence.

Putting the comma inside the quote would imply that there was more of the quote to come.

Daniel