Nita writes:
I am curious about the use of quotation marks not as quotations but usage around words; When do you put periods and commas outside the quotation marks? Do you ever?
Sometimes we do set off a word or phrase with quotation marks because it's an unfamiliar term, or we're about to use it an unusual way:
Most Americans have never heard the expression "Medicine Line." That was what the Plains Indians called the US-Canadian border.
Note that when we set off the expression, we immediately define it. The next time we mention the Medicine Line, we can drop the quotation marks. And note that we punctuate the expression the same way we do with quoted speech: periods and commas go inside the closing quotation marks, and colons and semicolons go outside them. If we're setting off a word at the end of a question, the question mark goes outside:
Have you ever heard the word "quark"?
Exception:
In legal writing, the usual practice is to put in quotes only the exact words quoted, and to place any needed punctuation outside the quotes. This makes it clear that the punctuation was not in the original term being quoted:
This treaty was to be in force "for as long as the grass shall grow", but it was soon violated.
I might as well mention another usage issue. The Chicago Style Manual says that an expression set off in quotes should have only single quotation marks, not the double quotation marks used to report spoken or written words. In this case, we would write:
Most Americans have never heard the term 'Medicine Line.'
When I saw this usage being applied in the editing of one of my books, I objected loudly. It looked strange, and while I'd seen it in some books I'd never seen it in any of mine before. So the editor agreed to give me the double quotation marks I was comfortable with. Single quotes may be acceptable in this case, but not in my books...or my blogs!
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