Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
The issue of punctuation inside or outside quotes is also one that varies with formal vs informal. Yes, the formal British rules say the comma should go outside unless it is part of what is quoted, but in novels this doesn't happen for dialogue (a distinction I've yet to see made in style guides, but maybe I've been reading the wrong ones):
Quote:
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"Not as far as I can remember," she said.
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(From Bulldog Drummond by Sapper, 65th edition published by Hodder and Stoughton, London, in 1943)
This style appears in both British and American texts. The comma in the above is not part of the quoted speech (if anything it should be a period), but that's not what happens in published novels. |
Oddly enough, I'm working on a manuscript right now where the author has done just that; put a period at the end of the quoted speech, and then continue the sentence with the dialogue tag. Naturally, I'm replacing them with commas.
The period would be right if the dialogue was a sentence on it's own, but it's not. It gets the comma because it's only a clause; it doesn't include the main verb.