Poll: Do you put commas "inside," or "outside", of quotations marks? What is your religion and nationality?

Answer 1

Inside, Christian and Brazilian

Answer 2

Commas can go in and out of quotation marks depending on the use of them .

Referring to your example in your question, the comma would be go on the outside, because commas are generally the written form of a pause. So the first instance would be:

quotation - inside - pause - quotation

If you said it like this it would not make much sense however it would sound correct to have the pause after the quotation marks because you are pausing before continuing the sentence.

Quoting written speech is different, remember that anything that is 'said' is included in the quotation marks. For example a common mis-conseption is, if you were to write the lines of someone asking a question:

"Are you, John and your brother going to be home by 10?"

the first comma and the question mark are actually being used by the person asking the question so it is 'said' and therefore within the quotation marks rather than out of them.

I believe I am a combination of the following: Agnostic, realist, Dawinist and philosopher and I am Australian.

Answer 3

I am pretty sure that I put my commas outside of my quotations....don't "quote" me on that because I am human and I do make some mistakes.
I am ethnically white(American nationality).....my ancestor's come from Scotland, Wales, Germany and most places in between. Very European, it is said that there is a little bit Native American blood flowing through my veins, which would come from my late paternal grandfathers side of the family.
I am Christian....non-denominational....as I grew up my mom always said Protestant...which means I do not agree with the traditions of the Catholics. I do not belong to any "organized" religion.

Answer 4

It depends upon what I'm writing, but when it is something unimportant, outside. I'm an American atheist, but I'd attribute this particular aspect of my grammar more towards programming and geek culture... It comes down to prefering literal strings, with the contents of quotation being exactly what is said without anything extra that could be confused (by a non-sentient entity parsing things most likely as humans wouldn't make the mistake) as part of the quotation. My parentheses also tend to have punctuation outside of them when it isn't refering something meant to address what is within the parentheses... This sometimes means parentheses end up on both sides of some.

For example, "I like hawaiian-style pizza", said the gnome (This gnome was of course stupid for this.).

Now, the parentheses shouldn't of course be part of the first sentance, but it's a subtext that comes with the thought, and these little subtexts, in my grammar, can be far longer than the thought itself...

Answer 5

Inside, Hindu, Indian

Answer 6

I think it makes more sense to put them on the outside, but by the American system they go on the inside, and since I'm living and writing in America, I put them there. American agnostic.

Answer 7

Inside. I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses and I live in the United States.

Answer 8

Outside (though I'm sure that's a grammatical no-no).
No religion. Atheist.
Nationality... does that mean where I was born or where I'm an official citizen? United States for both.

Answer 9

Inside, Christian, American
http://www.grammartips.homestead.com/inside.html

Answer 10

It is grammatically correct to put all punctuation, if it applies, inside the quotes as opposed to outside.

No religion, American

Answer 11

I don't think it's got anything to do with religion, but I ain't got one anyway!

It's a traditional in "American English" to put them outside, and in "English English" to put them inside. Being Australian I do a bit of both. Invariably inside at the end of a "sentence." But in the middle it varies as to mood, usage and levels of caffeine in my blood (high levels are directly proportional to pedancy I find.) There's another one, punctuation inside or outside parentheses. Nothing I love better than a long (and preferably rambling), juicy sentence with brackets followed by punctuation in the middle somewhere...