Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/296

282 With a difference (Ophelia: O, you must wear your rue with a difference) might escape notice as a quotation if attention were not drawn to it. A reader fit to appreciate Lamb, however, could scarcely fail to be sufficiently warned by the odd turn of the preceding words.

A question of some importance to writers who trouble themselves about accuracy, though no doubt the average reader is profoundly indifferent, is that of the right order as between quotation marks and stops. Besides the conflict in which we shall again find ourselves with the aesthetic compositor, it is really difficult to arrive at a completely logical system. Before laying down what seems the best attainable, we must warn the reader that it is not the system now in fashion; but there are signs that printers are feeling their way towards better things, and this is an attempt to anticipate what they will ultimately come to. We shall make one or two postulates, deduce rules, and give examples. After the examples (in order that readers who are content either to go on with the present compromise or to accept our rules may be able to skip the discussion), we shall consider some possible objections.

No stop is ever required at the end of a quotation to separate the quotation, as such, from what follows; that is sufficiently done by the quotation mark.

A stop is required to separate the containing sentence, which may go on beyond the quotation's end, but more commonly does not, from what follows.

An exclamation or question mark—which are not true stops, but tone symbols—may be an essential part of the quotation.

When a quotation is broken by such insertions as he said, any stop or tone symbol may be an essential part of the first fragment of quotation.

No stop is needed at either end of such insertions as he said