A Word Please

Are you getting ready? Can you feel the excitement in the air? That's right, it's time to mark your calendar because National Punctuation Day is just 50 weeks away! And be sure to do a better job of marking your calendar than I did, that way you won't find yourself scratching your head and wondering how you missed out on a golden opportunity to write a brilliant and timely column, show off your hard-earned punctuation expertise and feel like Lynne Truss for a day. According to its website, National Punctuation Day, Sept. 24, is the brainchild of a lone guy with hairy arms and access to a health club with a poorly punctuated sign: "Member's Testimonials." (Along similar lines, I have tried to found National Give June Money Day and National Vandalize a Hummer Day -- to no avail.) No matter. Punctuation Day founder Jeff Rubin, owner of a newsletter publishing business in Pinole, Calif., clearly has his heart in the right place. Billing the day as "a celebration of the lowly comma, correctly used quotes and other proper uses of periods, semicolons and the ever mysterious ellipsis," Rubin uses his site to help promote teaching punctuation to kids. Who could argue with that? (Except the kids, of course). So in honor of Rubin's efforts, I thought I would use this just-around-the-corner holiday as an excuse to touch on one of the finer points (tee hee) of punctuation. And here it is: In American English, periods and commas adjacent to quotation marks go inside the quotation marks. I know. It's not logical. It's not consistent with other punctuation. It just is. Even though it seems like most people think it isn't. This is the most common mistake in the emails that make it to my in-box - e-mails from people who often know a lot about grammar and usage. I'll get a note that says: I'm reading "The Hobbit". Or I'll get one that says: John told me I should "watch my mouth", or else I'd be in trouble. Both of those are wrong. The period and comma should go inside the quotation marks. That's true even though the period is not part of the book title. (This assumes, of course, that you choose quotation marks instead of italics or underlining for book titles. That choice is a matter of style.) It's true even though the comma is not part of the quoted matter. It's just a rule and/or convention of American English. Adding to the confusion: The multi-bazillion selling "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" continues to fly off the shelves of American bookstores (what, me jealous?), despite the fact that it's about British style. And British style says to do it the other way. Then you've got Alex Trebek and the good folks at "Jeopardy!" defying this rule at every turn. (Yes, really. The show's failure to put commas and periods inside quotation marks has been discussed in the Ask Marilyn column in Parade Magazine as well as in my book.) Rounding out this conspiracy to confuse American users are our very own question mark and exclamation point, to which different rules apply. For the exclamation point and quotation mark, placement depends on meaning. If a question mark or exclamation point pertains to the quoted matter, it goes inside the quotation marks. Kojak's catch phrase was "Who loves ya, baby?" If it instead applies to the whole sentence, then it goes outside. What do you mean by, "Not me"? Same for exclamation points. I yelled, "Get away from my Hummer!" But: I'm furious that the D.J. won't play "Achy Breaky Heart"! Colons and semicolons always go outside the quotation marks. But because we've run out of space, we'll have to wait till next year for some examples. But don't worry, this time I'm marking my calendar with visible ink. - June Casagrande is author of "Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies." She can be reached at word@grammarsnobs.com.