A Grammar Thing

Posted on March 24, 2004 in Writing

So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,

  Ground he at grammar;

Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife:

  While he could stammer

He settled Hoti’s business—let it be!—

  Properly based Oun—

Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,

  Dead from the waist down.


– Robert Browning

I was taught and I continue to believe — against all the grammar books — that the position of the period when you quote someone in the context of a longer sentence which did not begin with the quote belongs outside the quotation marks. Ergo:

Hannah Arendt wrote of “the banality of evil”.

not

Hannah Arendt wrote of “the banality of evil.”

The second looks decidedly weird to me. I have had people threaten me with expulsion from the community of thinkers for this stand. I told them to read A Grammarian’s Funeral.