Where You Can Put Your Commas

When one puts a comma (or any punctuation) after a word in quotes, like "this," it is standard to put the comma/punctuation inside the quotes as I have done "here." However that has never seemed logical to me, since it is the word one is putting in quotes, not its place/role in the sentence (as indicated by its punctuation). For that reason we here at Destandardize Language say put your punctuation outside of your quotes, like "this". Ahh - so much more satisfying to the mind.

Not that we'd make a RULE about it (and upon reflectin' it is worth it to note that the convention with parentheses is to put the punctuation outside the last parenthesis, like so). So the Destandardize Language suggestion actually brings the use of parentheses and quotation marks into congruence regarding their relationship to punctuation. Funny that Destandardizing something can bring it into greater harmony.