I collect pithy quotes to help make sense of the world. When I was a struggling freelance writer, one of my favorites was from novelist Elmore Leonard. “What type of writing pays the most?” he asked. “Ransom notes.”
While ransom notes need not be grammatically correct, business writing should be. So here are the two most important rules about using quotes.
Rule No. 1: Use quotation marks around only the exact words someone used.
Rule No. 2: All periods and commas should be placed inside the quotation marks.
Thus, if we were to quote T.S. Eliot regarding the coming of the new year, we would do so with this punctuation: “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language/And next year’s words await another voice.”
Note that 1) the words inside the quotes are exactly those Eliot wrote, and 2) the period at the end of the sentence is inside the quotation mark.
Using question marks is slightly trickier than using periods and commas.
Under certain circumstances, question marks and exclamation points go outside the quote marks, as when your overall sentence is a question. Did you see the movie “The Last Jedi”?
On the other hand, the question mark goes inside the quote here: I didn’t see “The Last Jedi,” but I saw “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” The second movie title is itself a question. Thus, the question mark goes inside the quote mark, next to the movie title.
This time of year, I often look for inspiration among my quote collection. I found one recently from writer Neil Gaiman that is full of wisdom, subversion and well-placed punctuation.
“So that’s my (New Year’s) wish for you,” Gaiman writes, “and my wish for myself. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”
Neil Chethik, aka the Grammar Gourmet, is executive director of the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning (www.carnegiecenterlex.org) and author of “FatherLoss” and “VoiceMale.” The Carnegie Center offers writing classes and seminars for businesses and individuals. Contact Chethik at neil@carnegiecenterlex.org or 859-254-4175.