How Can A Comma Come After Inverted Commas?

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Odessa Dawn

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Erdogan warned of extending the conflict to the entire region. "We must say no to this tragedy and we should not allow the flames to move to the region", he stressed.


Source:Erdogan condemns Libya US mission attack - Israel News, Ynetnews

Which one comes first "inverted commas/quotes" or "coma?"

Putting a comma after the quotation marks would be acceptable in American English. Other parts of the world may have different rules.
 
Non-Americans have different ideas about whether punctuation belongs inside or outside of quotation marks. Americans place punctuation inside the quotes.
 
:up: So the question in the title is meaningless (and probably provocative, to anyone who cared ;-))

b
 
Putting a comma after the quotation marks would be acceptable in American English. Other parts of the world may have different rules.

No, that's backwards. The American style requires that the comma ALWAYS come inside the quote, not after. Whether it makes sense or not. :-?
 
And why call quotation marks "inverted" commas? If anything they are "elevated" commas. (Yes, opening quotes are upside down in traditional typesetting. But the closing quotes aren't.)
 
*****NOT A TEACHER *****


Dear Fellow Member Odessa:


As the other posters have told you, the punctuation "rules" vary from country to country (and sometimes from professional writer to professional writer!).

I thought that you would like to see this example, taken from an American magazine:

In a recent article titled "What Do Banks Do?," which appeared in ....

*****

That sentence comes from the New Yorker, a very sophisticated magazine for well-educated people.

(No, I am not sophisticated, nor am I well-educated!)


Your fellow member,


James
 
In BrE, we can put punctuation outside quotation marks if it fits the sentence better
 
***** NOT A TEACHER *****


I thought that followers of this thread might enjoy this horrible example (in my opinion) of American punctuation, which I am sorry to say is followed by most American publications.

Please know that "Today" is a popular morning television program; NBC refers to the National Broadcasting Company television network.

These two sentences come from the Fall, 2012, issue of the American Journalism Review:


[The name of a newsreader] was a known quantity at NBC, where she'd spent 14 years as "Today's" newsreader
before being promoted to co-host. But almost as soon as she moved up, "Today's" ratings headed down.


"Of course," the "correct" punctuation should be:


... where she'd spent 14 years as "Today" 's newsreader ....


I have noticed only a few publications have the courage to write it that way.



James
 
[The name of a newsreader] was a known quantity at NBC, where she'd spent 14 years as "Today's" newsreader ...

"Of course," the "correct" punctuation should be: ... where she'd spent 14 years as "Today" 's newsreader ....
If that is the correct version in AmE, then it looks horrible. '"Today's" newsreader' may not be pretty, but it's not as bad as ' "Today" 's newsreader ....' even if that is more logical. The simplest solution would be to avoid quotation marks altogether; italic script is a useful alternative: '... as Today's newsreader ...'
 
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