LOGICAL PUNCTUATION AND CORRECT AMERICAN PUNCTUATION.

LOGICAL PUNCTUATION AND CORRECT AMERICAN PUNCTUATION. In this article in Slate, Ben Yagoda points out the difference between the American style of placing periods and commas inside punctuation marks and the British style of placing them outside. The British style is apparently known as “logical punctuation” because when the mark is placed inside the punctuation mark changes the unit enclosed by the quotation marks. Wikipedia and the Linguistic Society of North America—and Conan O’Brien—follow the logical (British) style. Yagoda thinks that the British style is being used more frequently, that: “A punctuation paradigm is shifting.” I have always followed the American style that I was taught in high school, and now that I have become committed to the view that usage determines what is correct grammar, I am unlikely to change unless most Americans do.