Commas before quotation marks

[Ursa major]

I would agree that what one likes (and dislikes) is a different issue entirely.

But the likes of the readers, and agents and editors, are also important (their importance depending on the means by which one hopes, if at all, to reach one's readers).

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I just don't like it much. Sometimes. It looks wrong.

Read two to four decent books a week (that you read already) paying attention to dialogue and in a month's time tell me it looks wrong

Think, though while it's frowned on to make up grammar and punctuation, inventing a word when it really works is actually allowed.

 

[J Riff]

Ah, it always has, for years and years. There are books, olde ones, that you may peruse, where various forms of punctuation have been used. Massive over-use of exclamation points, underlining, boldface, periods at the end of dialogue... any and all forms that would be heavily-critisized today, read up by guys like me - mostly in comic books, and such conditioning cannot be repaired easily.

 

[tinkerdan]

I remember all my comic books being grammatically correct. Something I had to often ensure the parents of while I maintained an enviable stack of them in my collection.

That was my story then and now and I'm sticking to it. I don't have any idea what comics you read that were so off base.

 

[J Riff]

You must be kidding. Try any early SciFi comics, EC or otherwise. Every third word is in bold, there's often two or three exclamation points, not to mention all caps - and I thought it was real, and correct. By the time of Marvel Pop Art Productions, it may have been cleaned up somewhat. )

 

[tinkerdan]

That's a different issue then the one at hand.

You must be kidding. Try any early SciFi comics, EC or otherwise. Every third word is in bold, there's often two or three exclamation points, not to mention all caps - and I thought it was real, and correct. By the time of Marvel Pop Art Productions, it may have been cleaned up somewhat. )

Bold for emphasis is a style choice. As is all caps. And since the majority of a comic book is dialogue there is a lot of shouting going on which might explain all of that and the exclamation points also!

Correct punctuation is a different issue and since there are fewer instances that dialogue shows up in the narrative margins in a comic I find it difficult to believe you learned dialogue tags at all from a comic. But maybe different comics.

On the other hand what I did say above was meant mostly in jest, because no matter what I told the parents they always thought the comics were trash.

 

[J Riff]

I know. Great EC comics just .... given away, in a box, to the thrift store. I am talking Amazing Fantasy 28, or whatever Spidey #1 was - I had two copies, and every FF, Strange Tales... you-name-it. Agonizing memories.
Comic dialogue is interesting, because there are no tags. Looking at Strontium Dog here... just endless bold, which gives accent to the dialogue.
Let's talk about this!
Sure, always ready to parlay!!
Imagine writing your novel like this. It does give more definition to the speech, no doubt about it... so why only in th' comix?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

There are books, olde ones, that you may peruse, where various forms of punctuation have been used. Massive over-use of exclamation points, underlining, boldface,

I've thousands of books dating back to Jane Austen etc (Shakespeare doesn't count as they are all late prints). None like that ... none at all.

periods at the end of dialogue...

Maybe you are thinking of trailing off speech which can end with ellipsis. Interrupted speech with a dash.

I don't have any comics about any more.

so why only in th' comix?

Comics are largely visual. Almost cinema story boards. Anyway, the only "comic" like publication that has much variation in the lettering is Asterix. A little in TinTin. The Marvel and DC or the rather different UK paper cartoonish comic such as Beano, Dandy, Mandy, Topper etc were rather more conventional. Anyway regular comics don't have speech tags or quotes at all, the bubble does it. Rupert the Bear had/has both separate verse and narrative story text and no speech bubbles obscuring the beautiful art work, so was conventional.

 

[tinkerdan]

We try not to write novels like movies or tv and thank god we try not to write them like comic books even when doing super hero novels.

I have a friend and colleague who refuses to read super hero novels because they aren't (and can't be) anything like comic books and if he wanted to read a comic book he'd get a comic book. [He does read comic books.]

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Comic dialogue is interesting, because there are no tags. Looking at Strontium Dog here... just endless bold, which gives accent to the dialogue.
Let's talk about this!
Sure, always ready to parlay!!
Imagine writing your novel like this. It does give more definition to the speech, no doubt about it... so why only in th' comix?

It's true, if you wanted to think of dialogue tags and quotation marks as speech balloons, you would want to have the sentence's ending punctuation intact within them. I can see where that might come from.

 

[J Riff]

I checked, and found a few, not nearly so many as I thought I remembered, in 40s-50s comics. But, a period inside quotes, then a period outside same quotes, with a ?! thrown in for good measure.... A few of those, but more ellipsis than you'd find in a truckload of trilogies.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Please can I revive this thread?

I'm still not totally clear on the use of punctuation when you're quoting a third party's speech within dialogue. The sentence I have in my WIP is:

'He wants to meet you, apparently. '"Under better circumstances", he says.'

My hero is telling my MC that a third person wants to meet her under better circumstances.

Or should I have written:

'He wants to meet you, apparently. '"Under better circumstances," he says.'?*

* The question mark is to end my question, not my hero's dialogue.

 

[Brian G Turner]

So far as I understand it, if you're using single quotes for speech marks, then double quotes for quotes within - and vice versa. Alternatively, italicise.

 

[HareBrain]

I think the question is where to put the comma after "circumstances"? This article argues that any punctuation which isn't part of the quote (and the comma presumably isn't, unless the original speaker added a pause there) should logically be outside the quote marks.

It also (towards the bottom) explains the difference between this "logical" view and the "conventional" view, which is that all quote marks should follow punctuation. The writer doesn't distinguish between internal and external quote marks for this, but personally, I think for an internal "quote" of a few words, I'd place the comma outside, whereas I'd always place inside for an external quote. (So in your example, I'd go for the first option.) This has the advantage of helping to distinguish the internal quote. But I guess further research would turn up many articles arguing both ways.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Ah, apologies - you're right.

As HB said, punctuation that's not part of the quote goes outside of it. Your first example IMO is the correct one.

 

[Ursa major]

Please can I be a pedant, if only to avoid people getting the wrong idea? The two versions quoted are both incorrect (although the first one is doubly so, because there's a misplaced comma):

'He wants to meet you, apparently. '"Under better circumstances", he says.'

'He wants to meet you, apparently. '"Under better circumstances," he says.'

The single quotation marks I've put in bold and red (and underlined) should not be there. In both cases, all of the text is part of the first-level quote (which in this example is denoted by containing that text within single quotes). The easiest way to check for this sort of thing is to make sure that each quotation** mark is paired with another one, and that not quotation mark is paired with more than one other one. The only exception is where a piece of dialogue continues over a paragraph break, in which circumstance there should be no quotation mark at the end of the paragraph (but there should be one at the beginning of the next paragraph).


** - Obviously, this does not apply to apostrophes.

 

[The Judge]

I have problems with this, too, Kerry, and haver over whether to put the comma inside or outside the inner quotation marks. As HB says, the formal correct view is outside, but it looks so messy it irritates me no end so I always avoid it if possible. In this particular case, I'd eliminate the problem by eliminating the comma! To my mind it's not needed as the sentence reads well without it.

As a possible alternative, I'd look to see what punctuation the original quote had -- or would have had if it hasn't been spoken on the page -- and if a full stop was used, I might shove that in there (ie '... circumstances." he says.') -- certainly I'd use a question or exclamation mark in that way eg 'And he shouted "No!" at me, the brute.'

And I second Ursa's comment about the stray single quotation mark (which I assumed was a typo).

 

[Ursa major]

As HB says, the formal correct view is outside, but it looks so messy it irritates me no end so I always avoid it if possible.

Whatever the formal** position, I believe having the comma outside the second-level quotation marks is not correct because it draws attention to itself*** (which is the last thing anything to do with speech attribution should do).


** - I'm now coming to the conclusion that two different things are being confused here: quotation and dialogue. I mentioned how quotations are dealt with in my first post in this thread (and noted that the convention in British and American English is not the same, though some US style guides prefer the British way). But what Kerry is asking about is not a quotation, but quoted dialogue, and dialogue should always be treated the same way, at whatever level it is.

*** - In the sense that it is not handled in the same way as the first-level punctuation and, by definition, is always going to be close to that different way. Even for those who don't know what the correct way is -- or perhaps especially for them -- it looks as if the writer doesn't know what they're doing.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

The single quotation marks I've put in bold and red (and underlined) should not be there.

And I second Ursa's comment about the stray single quotation mark (which I assumed was a typo).

Yes, a typo that somehow sneaked in (it's not there in the original).

It looks as though the jury is out, even here -- perhaps I'll just use italics for the quote. Many thanks to all of you for your help.

 

[Ursa major]

It looks as though the jury is out, even here -- perhaps I'll just use italics for the quote.

It isn't a quote; it's quoted speech (followed by 'he says').