Parentheses, quote marks and apostrophes

Question

Does a punctuation mark go inside a quote or outside?Does a punctuation mark go inside a parenthesis or outside?Is the word "everyones" proper use when used as a noun, opposed to everyone's?thanks

SmolderingMuffin · Accepted Answer

You're asking questions that are too broad, or are about less-than-established formatting. I'll do what I can though.

Punctuation on quotation marks: There is one rule that is always the case.

"I can't ever remember the rules for quotation mark punctuation," he said gloomily.

"I can't ever remember the rules for quotation mark punctuation!"

For direct quotes like the above, the punctuation goes inside.

What is a matter of some debate is what to do about fragments, indirect quotes, and the like. Let me show you what I mean.

I can't stand all this ambiguity over whether punctuation marks go "inside a quote or outside"!

In that example, I'm using quote marks to denote that those aren't my written words...they're yours! They're also not a complete sentence. So, I believe it's best to leave the sentence punctuation outside the quote mark; however, there's not 100% consensus here. There are other such instances where it seems best, to me, to leave the punctuation outside. Say a character gets called "run-of-the-mill" by another character. Later in the same story, the character asks someone else:

I don't think I'm "run-of-the-mill"...do you?

I think it's a little clearer in this case that the punctuation (the ellipsis) should remain outside.

As for parentheses, you should avoid punctuation inside them whenever possible (like here). Pretty simple. (However, if you complete a sentence within a set of parentheses, you have to punctuate it inside.) Note the difference there. Like I said though, you should attempt to avoid making sentences in parentheses.

"Everyones" is never correct. "Everyone's" is the possessive of "everyone". (See that punctuation?)

Karica · Answer

In the American style (as opposed to the British style) you punctuate inside of the quotation marks. In the British style, however, you punctuate outside the quotation marks. (There are American writers in the United States that prefer the British style.) In brief, you can go either way. But stick to one style; otherwise, you will confuse your readers.

As shown in one of the illustrations above, the period is inside the closing parentheses because the content inside the parentheses is a complete sentence. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but you may want to first understand what the purpose of the parentheses is before you learn the other rules. Otherwise, you'll be confused even more.

If the material inside the parenthesis requires its own question or exclamation mark then the appropriate punctuation mark goes inside the closing parentheses (you follow?). As you can see, the question mark is not outside the closing parenthesis, because the sentence was not a question.

One more example:
Do you want some eggnogg (it comes with a hint of alcohol)?

I'm asking if you want eggnogg; not whether it comes with any alcohol. Thus, the period belongs outside the closing parenthesis.

I will echo what SmolderingMuffin said about on your last question.

-Karica

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you for your help.

Anonymous · Answer

1. A punctuation mark goes inside a quote.

2. If the parenthesized phrase is a sentence, you put a punctuation mark in like this: (I have never been to Rome, but I hope to go.) If the parenthesized phrase is a sentence fragment, you can only put commas, semicolons, colons, parentheses, and brackets inside. You can't put periods, exclamation points, question marks, or ellipses.

3. "Everyone" can't be a noun. Here is a link to the meaning: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/everyone

Parentheses, quote marks and apostrophes

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions