comma or period with quotation mark: the sign for "Thank you." is

[Akasaka]

Hello everyone,

Here's a sentence from my textbook.

The Japanese sign for "Thank you," is different from the American sign.

I am wondering if it is correct to use a comma after Thank you. Shouldn't it be a period?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Myridon]

There should be no punctuation there.

 

[Copyright]

If it were a period, the reader would come to a full stop -- leaving these rest of your sentence stranded. I would not use any punctuation there.

 

[Akasaka]

If it were a period, the reader would come to a full stop -- leaving these rest of your sentence stranded. I would not use any punctuation there.

Hi Copyright,
I see what you mean. Is "Thank you" all right as it is? Should I begin with a small letter here;
The Japanese sign for "thank you" is different from the American sign.

 

[Copyright]

I would probably capitalize it because it will be capitalized in the sign. Assuming you really mean a sign with the words "Thank you." printed on it.

 

[Akasaka]

Oh, sorry. "Sign" here means sign language.

 

[Copyright]

Thanks for the clarification. I always wonder about capitalization myself and finally decide on whether I think it's a complete phrase -- "Thank you." "You're welcome" -- or part of a sentence -- "I want to thank you for the gift." Here, it sounds like a simple "Thank you," so I would probably use it in that form.

 

[Akasaka]

Thanks a lot, Copyright.
I wonder what people in the newspaper or publishing house have to say about this punctuation. Anyone?

 

[JustKate]

I wouldn't capitalize it. If "thank you" represented a sentence that you were quoting, maybe. (For example: In response to my help, she said, "Thank you.") But all you're doing here is transcribing a phrase, so I'd write it lowercase.

 

[dn88]

I don't know why they used a comma.
I would use it only if it was directly followed by a name:
Thank you, Bill.
There's no need for a comma or capitalization in the example provided.

 

[entangledbank]

Lower case 'thank you', no internal punctuation, as it's just being treated as an expression. Some expressions, such as 'hello', 'yes', and 'thank you', are commonly used as complete utterances, but you're not treating it that way: there's a sign for 'rabbit' and a sign for 'thank you' and a sign for 'Japanese', and so on.