There are many differences betwixt the UK and US. Many are good, like the US becoming obsessed with hygienic marketing and washing themselves often, including their teeth. Some are bad, like the UK having few domestic resources.
Others, the ones I pay attention to, are hilarious. Coffee vs Tea, when everyone knows they’re both terrible. Right- vs Left-side driving because all drivers are terrible, distracted and dangerous. Yards (only us) vs Meters (everyone else).
Or our “shared” language: Did you know “color” has a “u”? Or “gray” is “grey”? And then there’s punctuation within quotations. What a cluster that is, right?
For those who went to public school and/or are young enough to fail through No Child Left Behind, here’s a refresher, brought to you by Tina Blue:
[Regarding question marks or exclamation points:] If it is part of the quotation itself, we put it inside the quotation marks, and if it governs the sentence as a whole but not the material being quoted, we put it outside the quotation marks.*
Simple, right?, but what about periods and commas, you (don’t) ask?
Universal American usage places commas and periods inside the quotation marks, regardless of logic… [except] when that last little item enclosed in quotation marks is just a letter or a number, in which case the period or comma will go outside the closing quotation marks.
Notice the “Universal American” specified there? That’s because the UK doesn’t throw that bit of huh into things. Commas and periods are placed the same as our question marks and exclamation points.
She explains this became the standard because of typesetting errors. Then she says: “But apparently only American printers were more attached to convenience than logic, since British printers continued to risk the misalignment of their periods and commas.”**
This “convenience for logic” sacrifice may explain a great many things. However… we’re passionate, misinformed, uneducated and overfed so we think we can shop our way out of recession and oil is magically infinite. (More proof of latter statement, via DC.)
All and all, we have better teeth (stereotypically), so things are going quite well.
* For those that text: add the string of exclamation points (I knw, u r totes crzy, yo!!!) after the quotations unless you’re quoting someone else’s string of exclamation points (cuz OMG they’z stoked 2, yo!!), where they should go within the quotes. In either case you’re an idiot.
** You can take this grammar advice however you like because she used “since” instead of the correct, “because” (or similar) in this case. As you likely missed it, move along and try reading something heavier than the Twilight series. (It’ll be hard at first but sound out the big words, “thorough,” for instance, and you’ll be fine.)
Photo Courtesy: I Love Typography
While I was watching the Packers 