[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by gmw

To repeat what I've said in an earlier thread:

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):

(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.

I've found the same thing.

I've also checked my Oxford Style Manual, and that one has actual example sentences of the comma going outside the quotes. It seems to depend on the sentence itself, for example:

The original sentence: 'Go home to your father.'
Same thing with an interpolation: 'Go home', he said, 'to your father.' (Comma goes outside the quotation marks since there is no internal punctuation in the original sentence.)

The original sentence: 'Go home, and never come back.'
Same thing with an interpolation: 'Go home,' he said, 'and never come back.' (Comma goes inside the quotation marks since it's part of the original sentence.)

The original sentence: 'Yes, we will. It's a good idea.'
Same thing with an interpolation: 'Yes, we will,' he said. 'It's a good idea.' (Comma goes inside the quotation marks as a "replacement" for the original full stop, from what I can tell.)

In US practice, the comma always goes inside the quotation marks.

In UK practice, as far as I can tell, comma-outside-the-quotation-marks for direct speech, regardless of the internal punctuation of the phrase/sentence, is indeed not actually done in literature/fiction/novels. At least I can't recall ever seeing it in a UK non-academic book. I assume that in direct speech, the comma in practice still goes inside the quotation marks in fiction books for the sake of consistency, while in academic texts it's more important to adhere to the punctuation of the original sentence and make clear whether a comma was part of the original phrase/sentence or not.

In other words, if in doubt, regardless of whether one uses UK or US English, I'd say "in direct speech, always put the comma inside the quotation marks, followed by the interpolation starting with a non-capital letter".

And not that anyone here asked about question marks or exclamation marks, but just to make sure anyone viewing the topic won't be left in doubt...

"When did you meet him?" he asked.
"Yesterday," she said.
"Oh!" he replied.