0

I have the following sentence:

The program identifies particular “targets” and “identifiers:” the “targets” are people who are suspected of committing a crime.

Does the colon go inside the quotes or outside of them?

Laurel
  • 66,382
Pro Q
  • 131
  • You either have to purchase it or find it at a library. Why ask that here?? – Lambie Mar 29 '18 at 19:58
  • 1
    @Lambie because I have seen many other useful punctuation questions here. I did not know that style manuals could be proprietary. I thought the point was that everyone should be able to know them and use them. – Pro Q Mar 29 '18 at 20:02
  • If it were entirely free, it would be online. The Chicago Manual of Style is a book, not a style guide (as you find in companies). Any named reference book has a copyright. – Lambie Mar 29 '18 at 23:17
  • If you are quoting single words in a text, the quotation marks (aka inverted commas) must go around the word. You would never ever but them after a colon. This isn't dialogue or quoting a person. And I reckon that rule is the same in most places where English is the official language. – Lambie Mar 29 '18 at 23:19

2 Answers2

2

While my edition (14th) of CMOS is getting long in the tooth, I don’t believe the guidance has changed:

5.104 The colon should be placed outside quotation marks or parentheses. When matter ending with a colon is quoted, that colon is dropped:

Kego had three objections to “Filmore’s Summer”: it was contrived; the characters were flat; the dialogue was unrealistic.

@Sven Yargs notes in a comment that the guidance remains in place in the 16th (2010) edition:

6.10 Other punctuation in relation to closing quotation marks Colons and semicolons—unlike periods and commas—follow closing quotation marks; ..."

Community
  • 1
choster
  • 43,403
  • The advice you cite from the 14th edition remains in force in the 16th edition (2010): "6.10 Other punctuation in relation to closing quotation marks Colons and semicolons—unlike periods and commas—follow closing quotation marks; ..." – Sven Yargs Mar 29 '18 at 22:55
  • This is not the kind of thing they would change.... – Lambie Mar 29 '18 at 23:15
  • In general, Chicago upholds the doctrine of stare decisis at least as vigorously as the U.S. Supreme Court does, but occasionally it reverses itself—even (in one recent instance) on a matter of punctuation style. – Sven Yargs Mar 30 '18 at 01:53
0

Although this does not answer your question directly, reading your sentence, I would think that the quotation marks could be eliminated. There is no need for scare quotes in that sentence, since there is nothing unusual or inaccurate about your usage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes#Criticism

Steven Venti
  • 283
  • 1
    The example does not use scare quotes; rather, this is a straightforward example of using quotes to define a term, much like a Stack Exchange "answer" is different from just any Stack Exchange answer. – choster Mar 29 '18 at 22:41