Bad advice from Grammarly: Quotation marks and punctuation
On the advice of an alum, I’ve recently been having Grammarly check over my musings. As an experiment, I even purchased Grammarly Premium during a sale [1]. Grammarly can be helpful at times. It catches overused words and misspellings. Grammarly was even good at noting when I was repeating words [2]. However, as I’ve noted in a few of these musings, I don’t always agree with Grammarly’s advice.
And then there are the times when I intentionally violate the rules. In particular, I don’t agree with the rules of American style with regards to the relationship between punctuation and quotation marks. Why, because American style says that we are supposed to put punctuation within quotation marks, even if it is not part of what we are quoting. That choice seems logically wrong to me, since we should distinguish what what is and is not quoting [3].
Now, I don’t mind that Grammarly calls me on this issue. However, I don’t like its advice. What advice? Let’s see …
The punctuation at the end of your sentence is misplaced. Consider moving the final punctuation mark from after the quotation mark to before it.
In American English, commas, periods, exclamation points and question marks are always placed before the end quotation mark. (He said,
Hello!) In British English, single quote marks are usually used with the punctuation reversed. (He said,Hello!)
Correct:
The bill is due today,Larry said.
Correct:
I got a new car!Cynthia squealed.
Correct: Angie asked,
Are you going to the mall?
Correct:
Please join me for dinner,Jeff said.I’d like to continue our discussion.
What do I object to about this text? Well, as far as I know, British
style suggests that you include punctuation inside of the quotation
marks when it is part of the quoted material. Hence, one should write
He said Hello!
whether they are writing in American style or
British style [4,5].
I’m also not sure about their claim that question
marks go inside of quotation marks. I see that the APA
Advice
indicates that question marks go outside of quotation marks, unless the
material being quoted is itself a question. For example, one should
write In today’s faculty meeting did Sam really say I don’t care,
I’ll be retired by then
? One should also write Sam asked, How is
this approach any different than just sending them to University College
London?
And it shouldn’t matter which style one is using.
Given the bad advice I saw in this bit of text from Grammarly, I asked for a refund on Grammarly Premium. After all, if they can’t get some basic rules right, why should one pay for the software? I am happy to report that I received that refund.
One benefit of the bad advice: I got to read the APA
advice and
a nice article in The
Guardian
that exposes some complexities and challenges that my choices are
logical
.
I wonder what the rule is for the relationship between bracketed endnote marks and quotation marks [7].
[1] Don’t worry! It had a seven-day money-back guarantee.
[2] However, it appears that Grammarly and I disagree on when it is and is not appropriate to repeat words.
[3] I am told that this is also hacker style
.
[4] As you might be able to tell, I also object to Grammarly calling
these American English
and British English
. They are really issues
of style.
[5] You could write He said Hello
! if you, rather than he, were
exclaiming. But the Grammarly advice doesn’t make it clear. You could
also write "He said Hello
? if you were puzzled that he would use
such a word [6].
[6] An appropriate response would be Yes, he said, Hello
!
[7] I also wonder whether anyone other than me cares.
Version 1.0 of 2017-04-03.