The Order

Nice Wikipedia find by Drew Breunig on the topic of quotation marks in relation to periods and commas:

Before the advent of mechanical type, the order of quotation marks with periods and commas was not given much consideration. The printing press required that the easily damaged smallest pieces of type for the comma and period be protected behind the more robust quotation marks. The typesetter’s rule was standard in early 19th century Britain, and the U.S. style still adheres to this older tradition both in everyday use and in non-technical formal writing.

The older I get, the more interesting and useful I find history.

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