comma after question mark (title, quotation, apposition): Woolf?", is

Hi again.

In the following example, do you concur that the comma should go outside of the ending quote marks as shown? After all, the comma is not part of the book's title (i.e., after the question mark within the quote marks); hence, shouldn't it logically go outside in this very rare instance?

The weekly book, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", is on sale.

Chicago's section 6.119 uses this example:

"Are You a Doctor?," the fifth story in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, treats modern love.

Does anybody agree with me that, despite Chicago's ruling, the comma should go outside of the ending quote marks in both examples?

Thank you.

Whoa.

moonglow said:

The weekly book, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", is on sale. :tick:-ish (titles of books should be in italics)
"Are You a Doctor?," the fifth story in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, treats modern love. :cross:
"Are You a Doctor?", the fifth story in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, treats modern love. :tick:

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Thank you.

I agree that book titles should be in italics. Still, some things such as article titles should be in quotes, so the original question is valid even if a few of the examples that accompanied it aren't really appropriate.

I agree with the Chicago Manual of Style here. It describes AE practice correctly: commas go inside quotation marks. The sequence ?," looks odd because we're not used to seeing it, but that doesn't make it wrong. There are also good arguments to the effect that AE practice is illogical, but it is still AE practice. Lots of English rules are illogical, but thinking that a rule is illogical doesn't leave a writer free to change it at will.

Egmont said:

I agree with the Chicago Manual of Style here. It describes AE practice correctly: commas go inside quotation marks. The sequence ?," looks odd because we're not used to seeing it, but that doesn't make it wrong.

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Logic, schmogic. I agree that "logic" shouldn't be a criterion in this discussion.

I just want to point out that this is a new (2013) addition to CMOS, and (properly enough) is proving a little controversial. I use normal AE punctuation, and I've been doing stuff like ?", for ages (not very logical, since all my other commas go inside the quotes). So ?", and !", don't look odd to me, but ?," and !," sure do.