American vs. British (vs. Canadian?)

I have written over 500 film reviews. Only 414 are currently posted, but I have the other 86+ written and ready. I mentioned this so that you're aware I do a lot of writing (assuming you're someone who just randomly stumbled upon this post and don't already know me). I had already been writing film reviews for over a year when I noticed something: I write like the Brits. Not in terms of spelling -- Canada already uses the British spelling of words -- but in punctuation rules as well. I checked online to see if I was doing it correctly, but it turns out, Canadians are supposed to use American grammar conventions. That's right -- we're supposed to spell like the Brits, but write our prose like Americans. Figure me that.

In case you're unsure what I mean, I'm primarily talking about the way quotation marks are used. If you're quoting someone, or using them to highlight your sarcasm (as I often do), and the words inside of them are followed by a comma or period, according to American punctuation rules, you put them inside of the quotation marks. For instance, if the quote I'm using ("I like cheese" even though I don't really) is to be used as a full sentence, it would be written like this: "I like cheese." The period goes inside, as would also happen in British English. But if the sentence wasn't full, and I was just randomly throwing out that he said that he "like[s] cheese," the comma goes inside of the quotation mark as well. It's the same if I'm ending a sentence with quotation marked piece, like how, at the moment, I'm being way too "serious." See, even one-word quoted words have the period put inside of the quotation marks.

The latter two examples of those vary from British English, meaning I had been doing it wrong. (And nobody ever corrected me or taught me the right way. Good on you teachers.) In British English, if I'm going to quote somebody to end a sentence, but the quotation itself isn't a full sentence, the period would go outside. Like, if someone "likes cheese". See, the period goes outside. The same goes for a comma. If I'm being "sarcastic", well, that's just me. See, the comma's outside! I had been doing this my entire life, and according to one or two internet sources, I was doing it wrong for Canadian English.

So now that I know this, I write "properly." Or at least, I try to. Sometimes I forget, and I'll miss it, but from now on, I'll write like a real Canadian, which means I'll write like a stupid hybrid of British and American.

Note: For those wondering, exclamation marks and question marks follow what would make sense, in both cases. If it's part of the quote, they'll go inside. If they're not, they stay outside. Why Americans don't stay consistent, I don't know, but it makes sense for Brits because that's how it generally is anyway.