Punctuation of later

[Kohyoongliat]

“Their response was a canned reply. Basically, ‘We’ll get back to you later,’” Kerans’ dad, Dan, told NBC News.

Can the word later,‘" be punctuated as
later’," ?

Thanks!

[Arinker]

@Kohyoongliat

“Their response was a canned reply. Basically, ‘We’ll get back to you later,’” Kerans’ dad, Dan, told NBC News.

The original is correct, I believe, though it would be easier to read if you add a space between the single and double quotes for legibility.
… back to you later,’ “
Putting the two right next to each other just looks like a smudge.

I don’t think your suggestion would be noticed as a glaring error - most people don’t actually know the rule - but the original with the added space has a nice neat feel to it.

[Anglophile]

@Kohyoongliat

“Their response was a canned reply. Basically, ‘We’ll get back to you later,’” Kerans’ dad, Dan, told NBC News.

I think the practice is to put the direct speech and its closing punctuation within the quotation marks. If there is a portion to be quoted within the direct speech, it is placed within single inverted commas.

“Their response was a canned reply. Basically, ‘We’ll get back to you later.’” Kerans’ dad, Dan, told NBC News.

The position will become clear if the sentence is recast as below:

Kerans’ dad, Dan, told NBC News, “Their response was a canned reply. Basically, ‘We’ll get back to you later.’”

There needs to emerge new ways of quoting!

[NearlyNapping]

This might be different in AmE and BrE. In AmE, there is always a comma between a direct quote and the attribution.

If the attribution precedes the quote, the comma is placed immediately after the attribution.

If the attribution comes after the quote, the comma precedes the closing quotation mark.

John said, “I’m hungry”.
“I’m hungry,” said john.

@Kohyoongliat

“Their response was a canned reply. Basically, ‘We’ll get back to you later,’” Kerans’ dad, Dan, told NBC News.

The inner quote is not a real quote or a direct quote, so no comma is called for. It’s a mocking quote that takes on the meaning that they didn’t do anything.

The outer quote is a real direct quote by Dan. So it follows the above rule and the comma is placed immediately before the closing quotation mark, not before the single quotation mark.

“Their response was a canned reply. Basically, ‘We’ll get back to you later’,” Kerans’ dad, Dan, told NBC News.

Since the inner quote is not a real direct quote, it would be treated much like the following.

“Their response was a canned reply. They basically said they’d get back with me,” Kerans’ dad, Dan, told NBC News.

[Masme]

@NearlyNapping

“Their response was a canned reply. They basically said they’d get back with me,” Kerans’ dad, Dan, told NBC News.

This is a lot clearer and simpler than the original one. So many quotation marks can make things enormously confusing. That’s how I feel.