# Punctuation & Quotation Conventions

I write with an unusual convention about how punctuation and quotation interact with each other. Doing some basic research for this essay, I discovered that my style resembles the [British style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_marks_in_English#British_style). However, I wasn't consciously influenced by an awareness that anyone else was doing this; rather, I had a personal preference and a sense that I could get away with it.

The British style is also sometimes called the logical style. Also, the British are increasingly adopting the American style. Using the terms "British style"/"American style" somewhat presumes the normativity depends on what landmass you're on, which seems like an unfortunate implication; so, I'll be using the terms "Logical style"/"Illogical style" -- capitalized to indicate that this refers to a specific convention, not necessarily what I really think is logical/illogical.

What I was taught to do in (American) school:

> She used the phrase "absolute magic."

Note that the period is not part of the phrase being quoted. It is instead part of the sentence being quoted.

What I do instead:

> She used the phrase "absolute magic".

So far, so Logical.

The Illogical style also changes periods to commas when attribution comes after a quotation:

> "It isn't magic," she said.

Logical style accepts this in fiction, but for nonfiction, prefers:

> "It isn't magic", she said.

I personally prefer to go "further" than the Logical convention in cases like this:

> "It isn't magic.", she said.

I realize this is pretty ugly, but it follows the logic. The same instinct tempts me to write:

> She said "It isn't magic.".

Here, I like to use a period both inside and outside of the quotation: one of the periods ends the sentence which sits inside quotation marks, whereas the other period ends the sentence which contains the quotation. The Logical convention leaves out the second period in such cases (as would the Illogical convention).

I don't think I've been consistent about this further convention, due to being a bit bashful about it. If my sentence structure leads to this conclusion, I'll usually shift the sentence structure in order to avoid it.

The main reason I'm writing the current post is to ask for feedback from readers. The only time I've been called out is when LessWrong specifically hired an editor for the published LessWrong books. The editor "fixed" all my punctuation to the Illogical convention. (I switched it all back before publication, however.) Perhaps I'll be a bit braver about my punctuation preferences if I know what readers think.

The reason I adopted this convention is to respect the sanctity of quotation. Quine, Gödel, etc teach us the importance of maintaining a firm use/mention distinction. The surrounding sentence should not be allowed to reach in and change or add punctuation! What is inside quotation marks should be the quote!

I find the Illogical style excusable when quoting speech, since the spoken words do not actually contain punctuation anyway. For simplicity, however, it makes sense to use the same conventions when quoting text or speech.

I won't claim I perfectly respect the sanctity of the use/mention distinction all the time. I would like to do better, but in some cases it is simply easier to be loose about what quotation marks mean. For example, I intentionally left this abuse in earlier:

> The editor "fixed" all my punctuation to the Illogical convention.

This isn't a quote, but rather, a scare-quote. [Grognor](https://grognor.blogspot.com/) once suggested using triple quotes to distinguish such cases, IE:

> The editor """fixed""" all my punctuation to the Illogical convention.

I think this is a good convention, and perhaps I'll adopt it more in the future.

Another case where I might be tempted to stretch the sanctity of quotation marks involves emphasis when defining a term:

> A "tomato" is a red, savory fruit.

I think bolding or italics is a better convention for such cases.

So, any thoughts?