List of Quotes 2

[Skie]

This is a stupid example but...
People greet others by saying, "Hi," "Hello," and, "Hey."

Is that the correct way to punctuate that sentance?

 

[pinkgecko]

I don't think the comma is needed after "and"

[blue]Never listen to your customers. They were dumb enough to buy your product, so they have no credibility. - Dogbert[/blue]

 

[pinkgecko]

The sign changed from "Walk," to "Don't Walk," to "Walk" again within 30 seconds.

from The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp

[blue]Never listen to your customers. They were dumb enough to buy your product, so they have no credibility. - Dogbert[/blue]

 

[karluk]

I would be quite surprised if the commas belong inside the quotes. I would write this

People greet others by saying, "Hi", "Hello", and "Hey."

 

[karluk]

Thanks for the reference, pinkgecko. I see that I've been doing this wrong. Still, the "commas inside quotes" rule seems so illogical to me that I'm not sure I'll change my habits, even if I'm grammatically incorrect.

 

[Skie]

I would drop the comma before "Hi" if the sentance changed to this, right?
People greet others with "Hi", "Hello", and "Hey."

This is similar to pinkgecko's example except the quotes are on the outside based on karluk's post.

 

[Lunatic]

PinkGecko

It would seem then that for:

[ul]Within 30 seconds the sign changed from "Walk," to "Don't Walk," and then back to "Walk."
[/ul]

it is correct to put the period inside the quotation? Sorry that seemed to be the only part of the origonal question that wasn't directly answered.

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[pinkgecko]

I believe that it's correct to put all punctuation inside of quotes except for the question mark when the quote is a statement, but the entire sentence is a question. For example:

Which quote do you like the best: "To be or not to be," "All's well that ends well," or "Rome was not built in a day"?
as opposed to
Charlie always asks, "What do you want me to do?"

I should also mention that a comma is only needed preceding a quote when they are two separate phrases. So for your Hi Hello Hey example it is not needed since it is all one phrase/idea, but for my Charlie example it is needed since the quote really has nothing to do with the phrase outside the quote.

Feel free to correct my logic, terminology, or the colon I used in my example...

[blue]Never listen to your customers. They were dumb enough to buy your product, so they have no credibility. - Dogbert[/blue]

 

[CajunCenturion]

I would write it as

People greet others by saying "Hi", "Hello", and "Hey".



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[Turkbear]

My 2c,

If the quote itself has a comma, then it should be included , of course, but when the comma is used to separate the elements of a list ( in this case a list of quotes),it is outside the quote mark since it is not part of the list item.









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[AnotherHiggins]

I seem to remember being taught that a quote used within a sentence should be set apart with commas before and after.

example:
He said, "Don't rely too heavily on your fuzzy high school memories," before disappearing.

Is that correct/in vogue?

If so, I'd think that the example sentence would read:
People greet others by saying, "Hi," "Hello," and "Hey".

FYI: We have had a few discussions on the placement of punctuation when using quotes before that might be of interest:
thread1256-823418
thread1256-964962

(Wow - those go way back to when I was mostly a lurker. I bet y'all miss those days, eh?)

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[mmerlinn]

Being a programmer, I would write it like Cajun since most, if not all, programs using strings use the comma or other symbol as a delimiter for strings and anything within the quotes is actually part of the string and not a delimiter.

However, when I was in school, umpteen zillion years ago, we were taught to put the punctuation inside the quotes. I remember having a terrible time justifying doing it that way, because even then, long before computers were common, it just did not make sense to me, although "that is the way it is done"!


mmerlinn

"Political correctness is the BADGE of a COWARD!"

 

[Olaf Doschke]

People greet others by saying "Hi", "Hello", and "Hey".

I would even write

People greet others by saying "Hi", "Hello" and "Hey".

A comma before "and" seems very odd, and for my sense of grammar (which is more german than english of course) commas don't belong inside quotes, so I'd make this intentionally wrong.

It's like an enumaration of eg apples, oranges and bananas.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[SantaMufasa]

I, too, have always thought that the iron-clad rule of placing (final) punctuation inside the ending quote mark has flaws. I agree with "CC" (as usual). But, regardless of what seems logical, we will be fighting the battle of "tradition" as long as we are alive.

And for Olaf, I can only say that I am a dyed-in-the-wool advocate of the "Oxford comma" that says, "Yes, place a comma before the terminating 'and' in a list."

My favourite example of a definite exception to the ending-puncutation rule is this correct rendition:

When did he shout, "Fire!"?

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]