: Use of punctuation within quotes with single words or letters Consider the following sentence: Huego becomes fuego by discarding its "h" in favor of "f". Do not omit the trailing "s", which

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OK, I finally seem to have found a concrete mandate on this issue after digging a little deeper. Not sure if I should reference my source as a valid one since it's definitely not official but I'll let the readers be the judge. Here's the link: Quotation Marks: Where Do the Commas and Periods Go--and Why?

To quote the article, universal American usage places commas and periods inside the quotation marks, regardless of logic.

~"Diane," she said, "put the book down and go outside for a little
while."

~"I will in a minute," she replied, "as soon as I finish this
chapter."

This rule applies even when the unit enclosed at the end of the sentence is just a single word rather than an actual quotation:

~To get to the next page, just press the little button marked "Enter."

The only exception is when that last little item enclosed in quotation marks is just a letter or a number, in which case the period or comma will go outside the closing quotation marks:

~The buried treasure was marked on the map with a large "X".

~The only grade that will satisfy her is an "A".

~On this scale, the highest ranking is a "1", not a "10".

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I see no reason why you'd treat the punctuation/quote convention any differently for a single letter than for a paragraph. The interaction of punctuation and quote has to do with white space and clarity of content, not the volume of what comes before those two characters.

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