Practical English Usage (Michael Swan)

Chapter Two
O ld R ule s , N e w R ule s
plete, unconditional, and unqualifiable.
ere Sam Cooke, President;
Richard Jones, Secretary; and Alice Smith, Treasurer.
A semicolon should be placed outside quotation marks or parentheses.
Exclamation points are to be used very sparingly. Here are two examples of when not to use one:
“What a game!” he exclaimed, and, “I was absolutely astounded!” With these kinds of sentences, an
exclamation point is redundant. If the sentence is written so that the emphasis is clear, no exclamation
point is necessary. In her bestselling book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynn Truss writes that “in
humorous writing, the exclamation mark is the equivalent of canned laughter.”
Place the exclamation point inside quotation marks, parentheses, or brackets when it is part of the
quotation or parenthetical expression. Otherwise, place it outside.
Question marks aren’t always at the end of a sentence and can be used to indicate a question within
a sentence, such as: Is he looking at me? she wondered. Place a question mark inside quotation marks,
parentheses, or brackets when it belongs to the quoted or parenthetical matter.
British and American punctuation rules are not the same. For example, in the United States, a
period always goes inside quotation marks. In England, it depends on the sentence. In fact, they don’t
seem to have a hard and fast rule for that.
British English is also different from American English when it comes to word usage, spelling,
and many other things. Some of the same words and phrases have entirely different meanings. In
England, knock up means to wake up or call; in America, it means to make pregnant.
The most comprehensive publishing reference work, of course, is The Chicago Manual of Style. I
recommend that you use it as your authority when you write.