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Had a slight disagreement with a client.

The answer is easy to google, but I wondered if we could get an idea of what people thought the correct placement of the comma 'should' be.

It would probably have been easiest if you'd just PM'd Sofa-King, Blonde's resident comma expert.

I voted, then looked up on google, and realised I was wrong. "Damn!" I said to myself.

Edit: Except now I've googled some more and there is a difference between American and English convention, apparently. So I was right the first time. Possibly.

hmm - i'm very much in the minority on my vote.  pretty sure the punctuation should be within the quotes though.

No need for a comma IMO. Missing an exclamation mark tho.

norrr, comma after quotes

,,,,,,,,,...........,,,.,,,.,,,............,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.,,,.,.,,,,.,,.....,,,,

It just looks right inside the quotes, although to be honest, I do struggle with punctuation. (and I use brackets too often.)

i might be getting confused with brackets - i know the punctuation needs to be inside them.  I can't say that I'd be particularly bothered about, or even notice, the placing of the comma in the example used though.  

i've consulted my copy of 'eats, shoots & leaves' but it doesn't cover this in the 'commas' chapter.  So I randomly picked up three works of fiction from my bookshelf.  All do the comma before the closing quote thing.

Depends on the context, I think...

the comma inside the quotation marks makes no logical sense to me

there are many, many things about the English language that don't make logical sense.

I was taught to place the comma within the quotes.  Being taught in America might make that wrong though.

No need to consult google, random books, or anything else.

The comma belongs outside of the quote. Unless, of course, Mr Bannantyne used it, in which case it belongs inside.

The inverted commas are intended to faithfully repeat what was said, or written. So it could be either - but it must reflect what was originally said or written.

Standard.

the trouble is we don't know what follows.  Should there be a full stop after 'bannatyne' or does he go on to complete a sentence?  if the latter, are you happy with the comma inside the quotes?

what's the answer then MW?

It was a newsletter headline - technically it should have a full stop at the end but the convention is to leave them out

Agree with this.  Like I said, it depends...

It's irrelevant. The quoter DOES know what followed, as he quoted it.

If there was a comma originally, then it's inside. If not, it's outside.

Unless it's the daily mail or the sun.

I probably wouldn't have used a comma at all in that case

3 magazine editors said the comma should be inside (and generally google does also), and the 2 IT people (me and my boss) said it should be outside.

So that didn't look promising - but we have greater resources than that to draw on, we asked someone studying for an English degree at Kings College, London what she thought. Her first instinct was that it should be outside; but she checked her textbook (written by one of her professors) - and that agreed, the comma should be outside.

I think it was pretty much as was suggested, there is a difference between the American and English convention, but because American is so pervasive that's the rule that people will find if they look it up online.

 - and more broadly, what Tikay said is why the American's are wrong (unless their is some odd reason why the comma actually was part of what was originally said - but if that was the case then it should have '...' after it, so it'd still have been wrong)

FYP.

Please, Dan, on a thread about grammatical pedantry, even though we have a healthy & mutual lack of respect for those two odious organs, we should write their title correctly.

Don't suppose she has a spare copy of that textbook thrown about?  Knew my teachers were mostly rubbish.

fyfyp

I voted after, but on thinking about it I really don't see the need for a comma in that sentence.

And this comes from a massive overuser of the comma.

I don't suppose she has a copy of that textbook I could borrow, does she? I knew my teachers were for the most part rubbish.



Fixed your post, Dawn.

could use a couple of commas tbf.

The real twist is that, not only is the comma in the wrong place, and not only (as you and Claire have pointed out) is there no need for the comma to start with, but Bannatyne didn't even use those words. They paraphrased him - i.e. they shouldn't have been using quotes either ;D

Laxie's teacher's may have been rubbish - but not as rubbish as journalists are

Over-use (note the hyphen) of commas is a disease on the written word these days. It's like a grammatical crutch that writers cling to in mid sentence.

Ninja edit FTW Claire!  You'd originally posted saying you didn't understand, but must have copped on fast.  Good thing.  You're my only hope around the place as the official 'Laxie speak' translator.  

I over-use the hyphen instead - especially on internet forums.

I think Claire got their titles spot on.  Capital letters are for proper nouns; and there's nothing proper about those two awful publications.

I have sent the thread to Sofa-King, for a definitive ruling.

We will all be wrong.

techically your second use of the word "proper" should have been as follows:

and there's nothing "Proper" about those two awful publications.

it was because i hadn't read jon's post properly so i had no idea what text book you were referring to in the first place.

What about the use of 'proper' instead of "proper", which is seen more commonly (especially online) these days?  Definitely an American influence there if I'm not mistaken?

Also, not sure if the 'p' in proper should be capitalised there...?

I don't suppose she has a copy of that textbook I could borrow, does she? I knew my teachers were, (for the most part), rubbish.

FYP Rich.

Dan, the word proper should definitely be capitalised when in " " for emphasis, and where you are referring to proper Nouns

RED, commas you put in are in my opinion example of superflousity in the use of commas.


or

RED, commas you put in are, in my opinion, example of superflousity in the use of commas. (if you disagree with me)

See I wouldn't have used the word "Commas twice in the same sentence. or omitted the word "an" before "Example"

I would also have spelled "superfluity" correctly.

I would have said:  RED. The commas you put in are, in my opinion, an example of the superfluity their use.

You are.,....,. All wrong,.., tbh a comma
should be used .,.. When thinking what to say .,..,.
Like tapping on a desk etc ,.,,.etc,..,

You should probably be careful about over-using the hyphen when you should be over-using the dash.

Correct.

The en or em dash?

Agreed. Deduct two house points from my score.

I don't know where to begin on that purler, Tom! The pedants will have a field day on that one. Be afraid.

I'm with the clawcamel on this one. both options look very wrong

someone ask miss coren

This thread makes me want to have a little scream and maybe a cry...

The comma in the example should be within the quotation marks. Why someone studying English (or in fact any other subject) at university wouldn't know this, and why they have a textbook that even mentions it, is beyond me... Surely everyone does this at school at about the age of 12? And if they don't, surely they learn it by reading books or newspapers or magazines, or anything? (The books could be English or American - it doesn't make a difference.)

However, there is a distinction to be made - and this could be where the confusion comes from - between these two examples:

"Don't waste another minute," says Bannatyne. Comma within the quotation marks.

Don't waste "another minute", says Bannatyne. Comma outside.

Second example isn't great, as it doesn't really work as a headline, but will do for ease of comparison. A better example would be something like:

James Caan a "beard-stroking baby-buyer", says Bannatyne.

It was the first one, but I think you might have to consider your knowledge base. Effectively what we got was a professor of English at a top university stating that it should be outside the quotation marks.

Or do you think you're more qualified to judge the issue?

Sorry, what was the first what?

To be honest, I think I'm equally qualified, because unless I'm missing something and therefore making myself look very stupid here I'm sure I'm right. (Also, I suspect your knowledge base might be slightly overqualified for this question... Professors of English don't get to be professors of English because they're better at basic punctuation than everyone else. I imagine the professor's knowledge of medieval literature or whatever is a million times what mine is. But I don't imagine he or she knows much more than me about where to put a comma.)

Anyway, I'm also sure that the professor wouldn't get this wrong. So I guess there are therefore two possibilities here: first, that the prof is saying something very clever (or "clever") about how technically the comma should be outside, but everyone started putting it inside a couple of hundred years ago or something, so convention now "incorrectly" says that's where it should be; and second, that there's a misunderstanding as a result of the difference between the two example I gave in the previous post. Cos what I was saying was that it could in different circumstances be inside or outside, depending on what you're quoting, but in your original example it should be inside.

Obv. it should be outside.

I know this because I am a foreigner and am therefore one of the few members on this forum that was actually taught proper English when I received my education.

Though I could just prefer it because it looks MUCH better.

to be honest I think it's fairly clear cut and therefore not prone to misinterpretation, I'm perfectly capable of changing my mind if someone provides me with evidence to the contrary but so far I have the majority of people thinking the comma should be outside the quotes, an expert witness suggesting it should and Tikays 'common sense' explanation as to why it should.

The strongest argument you've provided is that it just should and others might have misunderstood.

and -

Do you really think there are absolutely no differences between American English and English?

No, of course I don't think that. I just don't think there's a difference here.

Claire's suggestion earlier in the thread of just picking up a book and having a look how it's done is a good one.

Again, though, my suspicion is that there's some misunderstanding here. In the increasing apt example you gave - "Don't waste another minute," says Bannatyne - the quotation is a complete sentence, and the comma therefore goes inside. In other circumstances, where the quotation isn't in itself a sentence, the comma goes outside. eg, James Caan a "beard-stroking baby-buyer", says Bannatyne. I wonder if you've tried to check where the comma goes in the first by looking up an example of the second. I also wonder where the second example could be where British and US English usage differs..?

From the Economist style guide. Ignore the fact that the point here is about the inverted commas, rather than the commas:

Use single ones only for quotations within quotations. Thus: “When I say ‘immediately’, I mean some time before April,” said the spokesman.

http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=805701 (http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=805701)

Except "Don't waste another minute" could easily be the start of a sentence, not a complete one, so I'm not sure your argument is watertight.

Don't waste another minute before replying to this thread, will you.

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