Hey grammarians - proofreading question!

[Blood Jester]

I realized that we were on a sidetrack about the differences between American and British useage, so my reference to where PC is writing was irrelevant.

Need more naps.

 

[Jdvn1]

In general, you put punctuation inside a closed parenthesis.

"I ate a Twinkie (but not the creme filling.)"

Is it ever appropriate to put the period outside the parenthesis? How about a comma?

"I plaguerized the text from Durbin (2005)."
"I plaguerized the text from Durbin (2005), but he doesn't know it yet."

Does anyone know the correct way to do it? Thanks!

To further explain (if you haven't already read up on the wikipedia page)...

The period is what ends the sentence. The parenthetical statement is part of the sentence, so the period goes after the parentheses. So...

"I ate a Twinkie (but not the creme filling)."

The period goes inside the quotation marks (whether you use single or double) because the quotation marks contain what was said, which is the entire sentence.

Just adding a little logic to an illogical language...

 

[Piratecat]

Tremendously useful, thank you. I have been doing it wrong. Worse, I just told someone else to do it wrong, too - I'll have to email them.

And I can't believe I misspelled plagiarized! I wouldn't have normally, but I copied and pasted it from someone else's post.

Not really. But irony is funny.

 

[Zander]

Sadly, I was hoping a Brit would pop on...

Brit popping on!

So, for your example, the following is American:

She was in full rant, "And then he says, 'You are such street trash!' so I slapped him!"

In British style, it would probably be this:

She was in full rant, 'And then he says, "You are such street trash!" so I slapped him!'.

No, not in current British usage. What you describe as American is universal nowadays. Moreover, I don't think it was ever correct in British English to end a sentence with an exclamation mark, a quote and a full stop.

Single quotation marks are still used in the UK for words that exist on the fringes of the language, specifically, foreign words and neologisms that haven't been formally accepted into the lexicon. It's possible to put these words in italics instead but not both single quotes and italics. Whichever style is chosen should be used consistently in any given text.

Brit popping off.

 

[Umbran]

In general, you put punctuation inside a closed parenthesis.

"I ate a Twinkie (but not the creme filling.)"

Is it ever appropriate to put the period outside the parenthesis? How about a comma?

"I plaguerized the text from Durbin (2005)."
"I plaguerized the text from Durbin (2005), but he doesn't know it yet."

Does anyone know the correct way to do it? Thanks!

I'd note that in some formal writings, the two cases above are not the same.

In the first, you're enclosing a parenthetical phrase in parentheses (which is often not done - the more usual construction would be "I ate a Twinkie, but not the creme filling."). In the second, you're making a parenthetical reference. In the reference case, the thing within the parentheses does not comply with sentence-style punctuation, but instead with reference-style punctuation.

 

[Piratecat]

My main concern regarding this question is reference-style punctuation.

Thanks again -- I caught this early enough so as not to totally embarrass myself.

 

[Ranes]

Another Brit popping on.

A good example of current British (and American) inverted comma usage would be this.

You may notice that this does not address the use of parentheses in quotations. This is because people do not use parenthesis when they speak, as Umbran pointed out. I would construct your last example like this:

"I plaguarised [old fashioned British spelling for me ] Durbin 2005 but he doesn't know it yet."

I'm going to side-step the issue of commas and conjunctions.

Another Brit popping off.

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

Heh heh. This is what I love about formal grammar: ask a question, get twenty conflicting answers, and everyone is sure their answer is the "standard" way. (Or is that 'standard' way? )

This is what I love about the internet: ask a question about grammar and get an answer from a person who could either be an expert in grammar or a 12-year-old kid using his parents' computer. And you'll never know which.

 

[Piratecat]

And you'll never know which.

Ironically, you can usually tell from the spelling.

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

Ironically, you can usually tell from the spelling.

Good point. Interestingly enough, I was just surfing a bit over on gamespot's forums (I'm in a video game mood this weekend) and I was horrified by the number of "dudE you suck piss of!!1!" posts. You certainly can tell a lot about a person by his (or her) use of the language.