Humiliating Grammar Question

[Forrest]

I'm tired of being unsure about this, so I will swallow my pride in order to learn something I should know. When you have a sentence that contains quotation marks that pertain to either proper names or declarative statements within questions, do the quotation marks go before or after the punctuation?

For example:

Would it be

Are you a big fan of "The Wire"?  <----I think this is correct.

or

Are you a big fan of "The Wire?" 


And I'm most unsure of:

Who was it that said "I really like the wire."?

or

Who was it that said "I really like the Wire?".


Can one of y'all that talks all smart help me out? I'd really appreciate it.

[buffcoat]

#1 Are you a big fan of "The Wire?"

and

#2 Who was it that said, "Are you a big fan of 'The Wire?'"

The punctuation always goes inside the quote marks and outside the parentheses.

Although Sarah will know more thoroughly than I.

[Forrest]

Thanks Buffcoat! Now if I could get a memo out to people who use "quotaion marks" when they aren't "called for" at all....

[jed]

Are you a big fan of "The Wire"?


Are you a big fan of "The Wire?"  

I would actually think that the first would be more correct but I am pretty sure there is not a hard and fast rule for this one especially since UK English Grammar punctuation marks, including periods and commas, outside the quotation marks.


Who was it that said "I really like the wire."?

or

Who was it that said "I really like the Wire?"

The first is incorrect.  You wouldn't include the period in the quotation unless it were followed by another sentence.  Again, I think the second is more correct but would lean toward placing the question mark outside the quotation mark.  I think parens and question marks work the same way in U.S. English.

[cutout]

Quote Abuse
http://www.flickr.com/groups/quoteabuse/pool/

The Gallery of Misused Quotation Marks
http://www.juvalamu.com/qmarks/

[Forrest]

Quote Abuse
http://www.flickr.com/groups/quoteabuse/pool/

The Gallery of Misused Quotation Marks
http://www.juvalamu.com/qmarks/

I love it! My favorite one is This is "not" a smoking area. It makes it sound like it's actually "okay" to smoke there.

[masterofsparks]

I'm tired of being unsure about this, so I will swallow my pride in order to learn something I should know. When you have a sentence that contains quotation marks that pertain to either proper names or declarative statements within questions, do the quotation marks go before or after the punctuation?

For example:

Would it be

Are you a big fan of "The Wire"?  <----I think this is correct.

or

Are you a big fan of "The Wire?" 


And I'm most unsure of:

Who was it that said "I really like the wire."?

or

Who was it that said "I really like the Wire?".


Can one of y'all that talks all smart help me out? I'd really appreciate it.

In the first instance, I would think the punctuation mark (in this case, the question mark) would go outside the quotation marks since it's not part of the title of the show. If the name of the show were The Wire?, then the question mark would go inside the quotes.

As for the second instance, I would again think the question mark should be outside the quotes. Since the person you're quoting wasn't asking a question, the question mark should not be inside the quotation marks.

I could totally be misremembering this - I haven't taken a grammar class since high school.

[Chris L]

Im pretty sure its' "grammer". 

[DannyBoy]

As a grammar queen (king?) myself...
--
The placement of question marks with quotes follows logic. If a question is in quotation marks, the question mark should be placed inside the quotation marks.
Examples:    She asked, "Will you still be my friend?"
     Do you agree with the saying, "All's fair in love and war"?
Here the question is outside the quote.
NOTE:    Only one ending punctuation mark is used with quotation marks. Also, the stronger punctuation mark wins. Therefore, no period after war is used.
--
In college, I was told that punctuation ALWAYS goes in quotation marks, but that's wrong; it should follow logic. As my own example (I copy and pasted the above from a reliable website):
Did you like "To Kill A Mockingbird"?
looks much better than...
Did you like "To Kill A Mockingbird?"
Putting the punctuation within the quotes there looks like the title includes a question mark.

Conversely, if you're quoting a phrase, the appropriate punctuation should follow within the quotation marks.
Oscar Wilde once declared, "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do."
That is correct. This...
Oscar Wilde once declared, "Either the wallpaper goes or I do".
...is not.

[TL]

Really?  It was always my understanding that, as counterintuitive as it may sometimes seem, the rule is, the punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks, whether it's part of the title/phrase or not, so the correct version is: "Are you a fan of 'The Wire?'"
Don't get me wrong - I'm happy to learn differently - but can we get a citation on the "Logic Rule?"
Also, italics can be used for titles instead of quotation marks, so you could avoid the issue altogether and type, "Are you a fan of The Wire?"

[DannyBoy]

Ted, you can find all of this in Strunk and White's book, which isn't online (unbelievably). It's the grammar queen's bible.
 
Also, I took a couple graduate grammar courses and now work as a writer/editor, so maybe my feeble credentials can give me some sort of authoritative say in the matter.

[Martin]

Are you a fan of the sketch "Who's on first?"?

[emma]

Formal quotations cited as documentary evidence are introduced by a colon and enclosed in quotation marks.

This guy said of this thing: "It is a very interesting thing."

A quotation grammatically in direct apposition or the direct object of a verb is preceded by a comma and enclosed in quotation marks.

Some guy I know said, "this thing is really quite interesting."

When a quotation is followed by an attributive phrase, the comma is enclosed within the quotation marks.

"I'm a big fan of The Wire," she said.

Typographical use dictates that the comma be inside the marks, though logically it often seems not to belong there.

Much as I love Strunk and White, I usually use the "logic" rule/style when I'm writing informally (i.e. not an essay like the three I should be writing right now instead of copying out things from The Elements Of Style).

[TL]

Word, word.
I'll consult my Strunk & White.

[jed]

According to American English convention, the punctuation mark usually does belong inside quotation marks in contrast to what they do over in the UK.  The only exceptions I am aware of are question marks and semicolons when 'logically' they belong outside of the quotation marks at the end of a sentence.