James Robinson wrote:
RomeoMike wrote:


James Robinson wrote:
RomeoMike wrote:

Then you would know that periods always go inside quotation marks.
:-)

Not always. If the quote is a single letter or number at the end of
the sentence, then the period goes outside of the quotation marks, as
in:

Mark your choice in the box with an "X".
or,
Jessica is a "10".

While the general approach in the US is to put commas or periods
inside the quotation marks, the rest of the English speaking world
tends to use a more logical approach depending on context: If the
comma or period is part of the quotation, then the punctuation is
placed inside the quotation marks. If the comma or period is not
part of the quotation, then it is placed outside the quotation marks.

I am not an expert, but I offer:
http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/...ar/qmarks.html

If you have a reference for your "X". example, I am interested just
for my own edification.

Canadians have somewhat of a schizothymic existence regarding language.
Being close to the US, many US spellings and pronunciations get picked up
from magazines and over-the-border television broadcasts. As an example,
one of their major newspapers, the Globe and Mail, at one time adopted a
style manual that dropped the "U" in words such as honour, neighbour, and
flavour. Their readers convinced them to return to the more traditional
spellings - at least more traditional for Canada.

Here is a link to a discussion about punctuation around single letters:

http://www.grammartips.homestead.com/inside.html

As with anything involving language, there are no absolutes. Language
evolves, and many things that your grade school teacher told you were
wrong are now accepted in normal writing. Anyone who speaks English as
good as I knows there are no hard rules regarding grammar.

(Yes, I know there are mistakes in that last sentence, before anyone
jumps on it. I was simply demonstrating that many won't see a problem
with it.)

Interesting. Here's an American reference that says to put all periods
within the quotation marks except for a parenthetical reference. It
doesn't mention the "X". example.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handou...r/g_quote.html

As you say, there are no absolutes, and exceptions can always be found.
Additionally, this is an international forum, and I have no idea what
the rules are in Great Britain or Australia, etc.