When and why did American English begin to use different punctuation?

Question

I was wondering when and why American English began to use different punctuation. On the web I find a lot of examples but no date or reason why. Any date/year or explanation as to why would be amazing.

Specifically the quotation marks and periods.

In British English:
Joy means “happiness”.

In American English:
Joy means “happiness.”

This is a pretty broad question. Can you name some particular differences that you're curious about? — user888379, Feb 15 '24 at 01:44
Actually, it wasn't American English that changed — it was British English. — Peter Shor, Feb 15 '24 at 02:03
See, for example, this book, printed in London in 1812, contains the sentence ... and formed his famous “soul of the world,” his “Anima Mundi,” out of musical harmony. — Peter Shor, Feb 15 '24 at 02:30
See Why is the period placed inside the double quote, at the end of a sentence? — Laurel, Feb 15 '24 at 14:18
There is a difference with abbreviations too. In BrE no stop is used if the abbreviation has the first and last letters of the word. So 'Mr' and 'Dr' but 'etc.', and in AmE the use of 'Mr.' and 'Dr.' has a period. — Weather Vane, Feb 15 '24 at 20:27

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 15 '24 at 09:41

I assume you're asking specifically about the convention of putting punctuation inside quotation marks, as in Joy means “happiness.”

According to an article in Slate which quotes Rosemary Feal, executive director of the MLA (Modern Language Association of America), this practice began in the USA "in the early days of the Republic", so around 1800, done for aesthetic reasons (it looked nicer having the punctuation inside the quotation).

More recently there has been a movement in the US for what since the 1960s has been called "logical" punctuation, where marks that are not part of a quotation are placed outside the quotation marks.

However, if you look back at older books you'll see a wide range of actual styles. And there are a lot of questions on ELU SE about logical punctuation: see this search.

The Rise of 'Logical Punctuation'. Ben Yagoda, Slate, May 12, 2011

<< The Morse code symbol for S is '....' >> is a strong argument that logical punctuation is needed, at least here. — Edwin Ashworth, Feb 15 '24 at 13:57
In what way does having the punctuation inside look better? Is one's opinion on the subject not mostly a function of where they were taught English? — Notso, Feb 19 '24 at 03:40

When and why did American English begin to use different punctuation?

1 Answers1