Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 105
- 3
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The only reason for the quote mark in the original example is because the sentence must end with a period but the quote doesn’t have one (there is a question of what to do if the quote does have a period, but in that case the usual answer is just to leave it out anyway).
There are several problems with this:
It falsely implies, as the OP says, that the period is native to the quoted sentence when it is not.
It doesn’t adequately end the sentence that encapsulates the quote, which continues after the quotation marks end until the final punctuation.
It looks ugly, there isn’t a need for brackets when quotation marks and a period suffice completely.
A direct quote seems an interruption in a sentence rather than its continuation. That’s why quotes can have different grammar to the encapsulating sentence, they can have different spelling (eg. an American directly quoting a British writer might use the British English -ise spelling of some words that have -ize endings in US English) and so on. The original sentence always needs to be finished for clarity, ending the quotes and then writing a period serves that function.
More options
Context Copy link