How should I punctuate around quotes where the punctuation required by the quote interferes with the punctuation of the sentence?

The American convention in quotations is (typically) to place punctuation inside quoted text. But I always run into situations where the punctuation of the quote interferes with the punctuation of the sentence. How would you punctuate this (American, non technical)? When my friends ask, “What do you want for your birthday?”, I never know how … Read more

Is there a standard ordering for the question mark and the exclamation mark used together?

We’ve all wanted to express certain questions, rhetorical or not, with annoyance, excitement, surprise, frustration and so on. What better way than with both a question mark (?) and an exclamation mark (!), right? I’ve seen two ways of punctuating such questions: Where is this place?! Who do you think you are!? (Things like ?!?, … Read more