Which side of the quotation mark does it go on?

I’m not a prescriptivist, I swear. As someone who is math-oriented (and maybe has some neurodivergent features), I like formal rules. I enjoy treating English grammar like a math problem; and, due to the circumstances of my upbringing, I am highly proficient at “standard” English. When I was younger I understood this to be a…

Words don’t have meanings

There is an argument I have heard. It goes like this: “Words have meanings.” The implication is that one cannot just use words to mean whatever they want, the words have defined meanings and these definitions are the only things those words can mean. I have seen this argument used a variety of contexts, from…