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comma after direct speech / nested quotation: schlimazel'," he

moonglow

Banned
English – America
Hello. Two quick questions regarding the American usage of quotation marks.


1. When Lisa said, "I'm in the Spirit," she meant she was experiencing spiritual enlightenment.
—Does the comma come after "Spirit" (inside the quotation marks) as shown above?


2. When Jonas said, "I don't like being called 'a schlimazel'," he meant it.
—In AmE, have I punctuated the sentence above satisfactorily with the single quotes around "schlimazel" (followed by the comma), then the double quote marks to close it out? If not, do I punctuate it like this?


When Jonas said, "I don't like being called 'a schlimazel,' " he meant it.

Thank you.
1. When Lisa said, "I'm in the Spirit," she meant she was experiencing spiritual enlightenment. :tick:
2. When Jonas said, "I don't like being called 'a schlimazel'," he meant it. :cross:
When Jonas said, "I don't like being called 'a schlimazel,' " he meant it. :tick:
Edit: Cross-posted with Avacado, with whom I agree. I don't mean to imply that the space is necessary between the single and double quotes in 2B. I think moonglow only put that in for clarity.
And BrE would do it like this, correct?

When Jonas said "I don't like being called 'a schlimazel'", he meant it.

Thanks to all, and have a great day!

PS: I'm American, but I'll continue to use BrE punctuation because it's simply more correct in every respect. If people frown upon it as being incorrect here in America, oh well.
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In AE practice, commas go inside quotation marks. If there's one set of quotation marks, commas go inside it. If there are two sets, commas go inside both of them.

If there are ever three sets of quotation marks, commas would go inside all of them, but I don't recall ever seeing three sets. Suppose I had to quote example (2) in a sentence such as:

"A WRF thread titled 'Two Final AmE Punctuation Questions' included the example 'When Jonas said, 'I don't like being called 'a schlimazel,' ' he meant it."

We don't have three different kinds of quotation marks, so I used single quotation marks for both the intermediate and innermost quotations. However, I'd rather avoid the problem, perhaps by putting the Yiddish word in italics:

"A WRF thread titled 'Two Final AmE Punctuation Questions' included the example 'When Jonas said, 'I don't like being called a schlimazel,' he meant it."

This version has only two levels of quotation marks.
I always thought that the rule was to alternate between single and double when nesting large numbers of quotes within quotes,

"A WRF thread titled 'Two Final AmE Punctuation Questions' included the example 'When Jonas said, "I don't like being called 'a schlimazel,' " ' he meant it."

but maybe the stye guides don't go that deep?
I would alternate, but situations of such massive quotation imbrication are vanishingly rare. I think the fear is that ' " ' might end up looking like a (mispunctuated) " ".
It's terrifying. Actually, in Mark Danielewski's recent experimental (and very spooky) story The Fifty Year Sword he gets up to four levels of nested quotation marks - " ' " ' - believe it or not. To solve the problem, the quotation marks are all printed in different colors, so the reader can see whether there are three or four of them at a glance.
I'm worried about the apocalypse should someone make a mistake with these delicate explosives....
Ha! Point well taken, but... if you've ever had an author screaming at you on the phone for totally butchering his/her work by changing these tiny elements, you'll know that they can explode, and that you'll want to be behind the safety of a style guide when they do.
Ha! Point well taken, but... if you've ever had an author screaming at you on the phone for totally butchering his/her work by changing these tiny elements, you'll know that they can explode, and that you'll want to be behind the safety of a style guide when they do.

Ahhh! The plaintive voice of a shell-shocked editor. My complete sympathies go out to you, wherever in CA you might be seeking refuge :eek:
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