American Versus British English Punctuation: Why?
Recently, I was tutoring a writing student whose first language isn’t English. When I explained that American English places commas and periods inside quotation marks even though British English does not, she asked me why.
As I did not know the answer, I figured “American versus British punctuation” was a great topic for a newsletter. Full disclosure: My student asked me this before the U.S. president signed the executive order making English the official language of the United States, an act about which I will hold my tongue, or pen.
To address the main question, I turned to the MLA Style Center, which says that commas and periods inside quote marks is an aesthetic thing dating back to the nineteenth century: “A comma or period that follows a closing double quotation mark hangs off by itself and creates a gap in the line of text.” The page goes on to explain that because British English uses single quotation marks as the main marks in quoting, there is “less of an aesthetic penalty” to placing commas or periods outside the marks. American English sources also argue that keeping the commas and periods inside the quote marks keeps the punctuation closer to the quoted material. And British English sources argue that keeping the periods and commas outside the quote marks lets the reader know that the punctuation is unrelated to the quoted material.
So, there you have it.
While researching this, I went down a rabbit hole. As my students know, in American English, double quote marks are the primary quote marks and should always be used first, even if you are using quotes to emphasize only a few words, as I did in the second paragraph, or to quote from a source, as I did in the third paragraph. Use single quotes secondarily, for quotes within quotes, like this:
He said, “I support the people who are speaking ‘truth to power.’”
Note the single period inside both quotation marks as it ends the concept. If that had been a question mark, I would have done this:
He asked, “Where are the people who are speaking ‘truth to power’?”
It’s the opposite situation in British punctuation. British punctuation uses single quote marks as the primary marks. Thus, they are also called inverted commas, which sounds rather cool. In British punctuation, single quote marks are the main quote marks, and quotes within quotes get double quote marks.
He said, ‘I support the people who are speaking “truth to power”’.
Check out some other fun differences in punctuation in personal titles (no periods in Mr, Mrs, and Ms), time (2.30 versus 2:30), and dates (30/5/2025 instead of 5/30/2025) at The Punctuation Guide.
In other news, March 18 through 22, the e-book of Wonderfully Made is free on Amazon. Check out it and the other books in the series. And please, if you like the book, write a review. Thanks to those who already have.
One more thing: Please offer ideas of topics for me to cover in future grammar newsletters. I want to know what you want to know. Even if I’ve covered the topic before, there’s always something new to say.
Oh, and happy St. Patrick’s Day!