pedants anonymous: question about quotes

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

If you quote the end part of a sentence and the end of the quote co-incides with the end of your sentence, where is the correct place to put the full stop? My instinct is that it ought to go outside the quotation marks - its purpose is surely to signify the end of your sentence. However I have a feeling that whilst logically appealing this is not the done thing. any views?

eg. Giles argues that the cow is "both large and faraway".

OR Giles argues that the cow is "both large and faraway."

having the quote marks come last looks messy and Not Right to me

1st one is correct.

i think the quote marks go last

full stop comes at end of your sentence, not the quote (so the first example)

whoops

i still think im right

sorry to pull rank but have my english teacher's hat on and I'M right so there!

sorry, feel sheepish now. didn't mean to shout

good. I'm glad to be vindicated. But I have seen it done incorrectly so many times (in decent journals and books) that I was beginning to doubt myself.

ok Mrs Moomin

how many lines should i do?

i think we'll leave it at that, nailpolish.

you know you've let thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat down, you've let mumsnet down, but most of all.... you've let yourself down. and that's punishment enough.

go on, bell's gone, out you go.

Also, er, it's far away not faraway [runs and hides]

Though I suppose 'faraway' could be an adjective as in 'a faraway place of which we know little'. It would be odd in that location in the sentence, though.

Often when I'm typing I worry about my full stops, particularly with quotes. They seem to place themselves naturally when I write, but wherever I put them - inside the inverted commas or outside - they look too big and slightly wrong.

Americans always put the punctuation before the closing quotes.
More and more publishing houses are adopting American house-style, which is why you see this more frequently in the UK nowadays.

Of course even in British English if the punctuation belongs to the quotation then it should be within the quotation marks.

Yes, but that's what bothers me, Roisin. Then I need to put 2 full stops at the end, if both my quotation and my sentence are ending - if my quotation was a full sentence. Is that right?

Shouldn't Hat's quotation have a capital letter for "Both"?

Moomin, oh English teacher, what are you doing using "and" as the first word of a sentence? You didn't capitalise it either!

I'm now fully prepared to have this post ripped apart!

I just wrote a post with lots of brackets and speech marks and I got very confused.

why is it I can never do one of these threads with making a mistake? I blame it on reading the Faraway Tree too many times. However a capital B??? Absolutely not.

Oh no, not a capital B. NOoooo!!!

ok bonus question: does anyone "get" the reference?

really MI?

Is the reference Father Ted?

Singersgirl - no, you only ever have one full stop. So inside the quotation marks if it belongs to the quotation, outside if not.

Btw my kids get taught complete codswallop at school wrt punctuation and quotation marks (and formal letter layout and all sorts): it drives me barmy.
But I just shut up and let them learn, in a few years' time I will instil in them proper Oxford style

I thought I knew that you can never use two full stops. But when I type it all looks wrong.

beanspout wins.