Talk:Midnight Run

Talk:Midnight Run

Where does this information come from?

Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

" Universal Pictures, which distributed Brest's previous film Beverly Hills Cop (1984), subsequently picked up the project."

The distributor of the film Beverly Hills Cop (1984) was the film company Paramount Pictures. KinoIstorik (talk) 09:16, 24 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Quotation marks and commas

Latest comment: 7 months ago23 comments3 people in discussion

So twice I've fixed grammatical mistakes that one of my co-editors reverts.

The mistakes:

  • Gallo said he based the relationship between Walsh and Mardukas on his own parents. "I don't think they ever realized how funny they were when they were arguing about something", he said.
  • De Niro attributed much of the film's success to Grodin. "The way Chuck Grodin is, it worked", he said. "His character was irritating and Chuck knew how to do that, to work that. I felt like that was a good way to go."
  • "I trusted Marty would choose the material that was most suited for the scene", De Niro said. "He's aware of everything in Chuck's style, in my style. He had to balance all that, and I think he did it very well."[10]

These are all obviously incorrect grammatically, as the comma correctly goes inside the quotation marks when a speaker tag. But my fellow editor thinks these are "not Wikipedia style" and is reverting these. That a rule isn't cited should be telling, but this is obviously wrong:

  • "I hope that my experience in the film industry has helped improve the picture and rectified some of the problems that losing a director caused," said Coppola (from the Supernova article).
  • "Scott is the one who resurrected my version," said Coppola. (from the article on Francis Ford Coppola).
  • "I literally thought it would be my last film," said Scorsese in 2016, referring to Raging Bull. (From the article on Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints.)

The rule's obvious to anyone who's ever read a book. Still, some sources: Here's GCF Global on it. GrammarBook has this listed as Rule 3B, Dummies makes this explicit. Microsoft for some reason has a rundown on this.

So yes, would like this settled, as the page is currently wrong, but I don't want to get into an editing war. DyedMyHairBlue (talk) 07:44, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

I haven't checked the quotations, but your fellow editor is probably right. The rule is MOS:LOGICAL. Your examples from other articles may break this rule as well. If that is the case, they should be fixed. — Chrisahn (talk) 11:10, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
You're correct, DyedMyHairBlue. When the quote is essentially the full sentence, the comma or period goes inside the quotation marks. MOS:LOGICAL clearly states this.

I too am sometimes frustrated by editors who aren't familiar with the logical punctuation rules (of which, incidentally, I'm not a fan at all, but it's Wikipedia's preference, so I go with it). I don't let it sit, though. I tend to correct it, even if it's multiple times. Right is right. milladrive (talk) 19:49, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Here's a quote from MOS:LOGICAL: Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material, and otherwise place it after the closing quotation mark. For the most part, this means treating periods and commas in the same way as question marks: keep them inside the quotation marks if they apply only to the quoted material and outside if they apply to the whole sentence. I think the three "mistakes" DyedMyHairBlue cites above actually are correct according to MOS:LOGICAL. — Chrisahn (talk) 21:02, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Understood. The mistake I believe you are making, though, is by treating a quote as a partial sentence when the quote is preceded by or followed by something like "he said" or "he wrote", et al. In these cases, the quote is still considered the full sentence.

The MOS:LOGICAL passage to which I often refer is... If the quotation is a single word or a sentence fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside the closing quotation mark. When quoting a full sentence, the end of which coincides with the end of the sentence containing it, place terminal punctuation inside the closing quotation mark. milladrive (talk) 21:26, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Terminal punctuation includes periods, question marks, and exclamation marks, but not commas. This means that a comma should not be placed inside the closing quotation mark. — Chrisahn (talk) 21:30, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
A comma is terminal punctuation when followed by "he said" or "he wrote". In the following examples, the period and the comma serve the same purpose:

He said, "My car has four tires and an engine."

"My car has four tires and an engine," he said. milladrive (talk) 21:36, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Is it OK if I delete the extra line breaks from your comments? They're quite unusual and a bit confusing. — Chrisahn (talk) 21:47, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Do you have a source for your claim that a comma is terminal punctuation in that case? But even if you do, I'm pretty sure your example ("he said" at the end of the sentence, comma inside quotation mark) violates MOS:LOGICAL. Quote: If the quoted sentence is followed by a clause that should be preceded by a comma, omit the full stop (period), and do not replace it with a comma inside the quotation. Other terminal punctuation, such as question marks or exclamation marks, may be retained. MOS:LOGICAL gives the following example: Livingston then said, "It is done", and turned to the people. — Chrisahn (talk) 21:51, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
MOS:LOGICAL goes on: If the quoted sentence is followed by a clause identifying the speaker, use a comma outside the quotation mark instead of a full stop inside it, but retain any other terminal punctuation, such as a question mark. Example: "There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet", said Kennedy. — Chrisahn (talk) 21:56, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I caught your example on the other user's page and replied there. Evidently, there's a fine line that I've been overlooking. I'll keep it in mind going forward. ...but in all honesty, I may not totally make the adjustment. It doesn't make logical sense to me, pun intended. milladrive (talk) 22:25, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Again: The three "mistakes" cited by DyedMyHairBlue above are correct according to MOS:LOGICAL. If necessary, we could analyze each punctuation mark in them, and I could explain why it's correct, i.e. which rules in MOS:LOGICAL apply. — Chrisahn (talk) 22:00, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
So, you're saying that if "he said" comes at the beginning of the sentence, it's okay to place the period inside the quotations, but if "he said" occurs at the end, the comma goes outside?
I can see that we'll never agree on this, and we both think the other's wrong. I'm okay with that. milladrive (talk) 22:10, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, I'm not quite happy with the rules either. I prefer simple rules, and if I could decide, the full stop also would go outside the closing quotation mark. Or alternatively, the rules should be really logical and always retain all punctuation in the quote as well as the sourrounding sentence: "Hello,", he said, "I am from Mars.". But of course, that looks strange, so we have to choose which punctuation marks to keep. The current MOS:LOGICAL rules are indeed not quite logical in these cases, but a bit arbitrary. — Chrisahn (talk) 17:40, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
In English grammar, anyway, it's our approach that's correct. I'm finding our whole conversation depressing. DyedMyHairBlue (talk) 08:25, 29 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Your claim that there is one correct approach is incorrect. See e.g. Quotation marks in English and Wikipedia:Logical quotation on Wikipedia. — Chrisahn (talk) 22:40, 30 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
(Somewhat related to the subject of typography and writing style – your comments here contain extra empty lines. Is that by accident or intentional? Either way, it's a bit confusing... — Chrisahn (talk) 21:32, 18 December 2025 (UTC))Reply
I sometimes double-break in my Talk replies. Sorry. :) milladrive (talk) 21:37, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sometimes? All the time, rather... :-) — Chrisahn (talk) 21:48, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
They're complete sentences, so no! The comma goes inside the quote. It's the same as in any book, or newspaper article, or even guide, as I've listed above. DyedMyHairBlue (talk) 16:21, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
These books, newspapers and guides don't matter. What matters here on Wikipedia is WP:MOS. MOS:LOGICAL is a part of it, and it says that in these cases the comma goes outside the closing quotation mark. If you don't like that, take it to Wikipedia talk:MOS. — Chrisahn (talk) 17:27, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
As milladrive has explained, I think you've misunderstood what that says. DyedMyHairBlue (talk) 17:30, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
See milladrive's later comment at User talk:AlsoWukai#Logical punctuation.
Again, here are the relevant quotes and examples from MOS:LOGICAL:
  • If the quoted sentence is followed by a clause that should be preceded by a comma, omit the full stop (period), and do not replace it with a comma inside the quotation. Other terminal punctuation, such as question marks or exclamation marks, may be retained.
  • Livingston then said, "It is done", and turned to the people.
  • If the quoted sentence is followed by a clause identifying the speaker, use a comma outside the quotation mark instead of a full stop inside it, but retain any other terminal punctuation, such as a question mark.
  • "There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet", said Kennedy.
— Chrisahn (talk) 17:42, 22 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

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