I am getting extremely sick of reading that punctuation is different in the US to what it is in the UK. It is not. Someone has even published an ebook pointing out the differences. Must be a very short book, since there are no differences.
"My name is Margaret." That is a piece of dialogue which might be included in a novel. Note I have put the full stop (period) inside the quotation mark, not outside. That is not because I am English, that is because it is where it belongs. If, on the other hand I had said: "My name is Margaret. My mother said 'I am a gypsy'." I have put the full stop after the single quote marks, because it does not belong to the quoted piece, it belongs to my piece of dialogue. Simple enough really and why there are so many people making it complicated is quite beyond me.
All you need do is go on the Amazon.co.uk website, find a well known, traditionally published book, a Stephen King perhaps, and read the look inside. Notice where the punctuation sits in the dialogue. Now go to the same book on the Amazon.com website. You will find it is exactly the same because traditonally publishers know how to punctuate.
It doesn't have to be a full stop; any other quotation mark works the same way and these people tell me it must be right because I saw it on the internet. Well now you have seen this on the internet so you can quote me instead.
Just ranting but I am quite sick of this nonsense now.
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