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comma after question mark (title, quotation): ...Promiscuity?," Ms.

Tower of Babel

Senior Member
USA
USA (American English)
In an article (8th paragraph) in the New York Times, I encountered a sequence of three consecutive punctuation marks--?,"--that struck me as very unusual:
On a different "Today" panel on Tuesday, called "Secret Lives: Does Power Equal Promiscuity?," Ms. Matos McGreevey argued that blaming wives for their husbands' infidelities ...​
It is true that U.S. typographical convention requires the closing quotation mark to come after the comma. However, if I had written the article, I think I would have omitted the comma entirely, letting the wording logically dictate to the reader that a "mental comma" should occur where an actual comma was placed.

Does the use of the comma in this example seem unusual or non-standard to other readers as well?
I wasn't aware that U.S. typographical convention requires the closing quotation mark to come after the comma. This strikes me as decidedly odd because although I would have placed a comma after that phrase, it would have been after the quotation mark.
See also the current thread titled Quotations Quotations Quotations, which deals with this subject and has references to loads of other useful stuff.
In US English we're supposed to be the comma after the quotation so it must have been an error in the article. I'm not sure about British English, sorry.

Pablo
For those who are not familiar with the U.S. convention of placing commas and periods inside quotation marks, this link may be helpful.

It is widely understood (even by Americans) that this is not logical, but there is a historical reason for this practice.

However, regardless of the order of the punctuation marks, do any readers (either AE or BE) feel that it would be correct to entirely omit the comma and write the sentence as follows?
On a different "Today" panel on Tuesday, called "Secret Lives: Does Power Equal Promiscuity?" Ms. Matos McGreevey argued that blaming wives for their husbands' infidelities ...​
Thanks for any responses!
However, regardless of the order of the punctuation marks, do any readers (either AE or BE) feel that it would be correct to entirely omit the comma and write the sentence as follows?
On a different "Today" panel on Tuesday, called "Secret Lives: Does Power Equal Promiscuity?" Ms. Matos McGreevey argued that blaming wives for their husbands' infidelities ...​
Thanks for any responses!

I would have proposed this version, until I saw it. Now I see that the comma is useful for marking the end of the phrase "On a different panel called ... ". So I would prefer to punctuate it:
..... called "Secret Lives: Does Power Egual Pormiscuity?", Ms. Matos McGreevey .....
​
By the way, the Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed.) allows "when the inclusion of a comma inside the closing quotation mark may cause confusion, the comma may be placed outside the quotation mark (5.87)."
By the way, the Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed.) allows "when the inclusion of a comma inside the closing quotation mark may cause confusion, the comma may be placed outside the quotation mark (5.87)."
The question is: what rules does the New York Times use?

I would certainly prefer:

On a different "Today" panel on Tuesday, called "Secret Lives: Does Power Equal Promiscuity?", Ms. Matos McGreevey argued that blaming wives for their husbands' infidelities ...

Gaer
However, regardless of the order of the punctuation marks, do any readers (either AE or BE) feel that it would be correct to entirely omit the comma and write the sentence as follows?
On a different "Today" panel on Tuesday, called "Secret Lives: Does Power Equal Promiscuity?" Ms. Matos McGreevey argued that blaming wives for their husbands' infidelities ...​
Thanks for any responses!
It would certainly not be correct to omit the second comma. The two commas mark out a parenthetical, non-essential clause.

Fortunately, being British, I don't have to struggle to compose sentences using the US style of quoting. However, it's still a relief to read, from (削除) Gaer's (削除ここまで) Cagey's post, that the Chicago Manual of Style provides a get-out for US writers.
It would certainly not be correct to omit the second comma. The two commas mark out a parenthetical, non-essential clause.

Fortunately, being British, I don't have to struggle to compose sentences using the US style of quoting. However, it's still a relief to read, from Gaer's post, that the Chicago Manual of Style provides a get-out for US writers.
Actually, it was Cagey who provided that information. :)

I wish the Chicago Manual of Style gave us a "get-out" for all those nasty punctuations that go inside quotes here. :)

Gaer
Thank you all for the comments and observations!

And thank you for the reference to the Chicago Manual of Style, Cagey! Thank goodness there is at least some amount of flexibility. This case seemed particularly tricky, evidently for the New York Times as well!

When it comes to the placement of quotation marks, I unabashedly envy writers of British English! :) :D
When I was a teenager (100 years ago or so) we were taught to use our common sense when deciding where the punctuation should go in relation to quotation marks. For instance, in quoting the title of a short story, we would put the end quotation before any subsequent comma. However, in their infinite wisdom (according to what I've been told, anyway), the MLA decided that it would be better to standardize usage, so it was dictated that punctuation always be contained inside quotations. This has caused endless confusion for this old soul. I'm so happy to see that the Chicago Manual has given us some flexibility! :D
I agree with you, Cathy Rose, I too was told at some point that commas always, ALWAYS come before closing quotation marks, although I don't know the source of the edict. And that rule worked fine for me, until I ran into [?,"] in the New York Times article, which looked positively bizarre, even to my American eyes! :eek:



It's easy enough to find others who adhere to the comma-first rule in all circumstances, however. Here are quotes from just a couple of webpages dedicated to better writing:
Quotation marks ALWAYS go outside periods and commas. No exceptions, at least not in American English.
Writing still matters, and you can quote me on that!​

In America, periods and commas are placed INSIDE closing quotation marks. ALWAYS. NO EXCEPTIONS.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I can still remember our professor at Villanova University exploding one day about the illiteracy of English majors. "You’re supposed to be English majors," he said, "but you don’t even know that commas and periods go inside closing quotation marks." I didn’t know that. And I never forgot it.
Q & A on Writing: Essential Punctaution 01​
Yikes! Them's fighting words! :)
I can still remember our professor at Villanova University exploding one day about the illiteracy of English majors. "You’re supposed to be English majors," he said, "but you don’t even know that commas and periods go inside closing quotation marks." I didn’t know that. And I never forgot it.
My professor at Villanova, Dr. Bader, said the same thing. Apparently we were both traumatized.
Are you quite serious?! That's amazing! :)
Well, maybe you'd better contact "RayS." Perhaps he was in your class!

And would it be correct to start an email message with
Hello "RayS.,"​

or should it be
Hello "RayS.",​
instead? :D
I agree with you, Cathy Rose, I too was told at some point that commas always, ALWAYS come before closing quotation marks, although I don't know the source of the edict. And that rule worked fine for me, until I ran into [?,"] in the New York Times article, which looked positively bizarre, even to my American eyes! :eek:
I have always rebelled at either BE or AE rules that are so rigid that they completely ignored the possibility that such rules, carried to extremes, become absurd.

We have all read about possible explanations of how commas and periods came to be put inside quotes (such as the information about type-setting), but the fact that we are still bound by such rules and don't have the right to make our own decisions just offends me.

I had no idea that we expected, in the US, to obey these "rules."

In the above manner. I'm still not sure if that is correct. To my eye, it seems so obviously illogical that I continue to write:

I had no idea that we expected, in the US, to obey these "rules".

So long as BE supporst the period outside the quotes in such instances, I think it's beyond absurd that someone who refuses to blindly accept the AE convention is labeled as anything but flexible enought to pick a good idea over a bad one. ;)
It's easy enough to find others who adhere to the comma-first rule in all circumstances, however. Here are quotes from just a couple of webpages dedicated to better writing:
Quotation marks ALWAYS go outside periods and commas. No exceptions, at least not in American English.
​
Whoever wrote that is not someone I would ever like to talk to!

Gaer
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