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Idiots? just sayin

OntarioVanMan

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
Turtle said:
Mr. Know-It-All largely doesn't care.

But he also knows that periods and commas going inside the quotation marks is strictly an American usage of the punctuations, and that the British and the rest of the English-speaking world place commas and periods logically (you complete the quote, then you complete the sentence) rather than conventionally (how the other lemmings do it), depending on whether the punctuation belongs to the quotation or to the sentence that contains the quotation, just as we do with question marks and exclamation points.

For example, whenever we Americans have to use a question mark or an exclamation point with a sentence that ends in a quotation, we follow the dictates of logic in determining where the question mark or exclamation point goes. If it is part of the quotation itself, we put it inside the quotation marks, and if it governs the sentence as a whole but not the material being quoted, we put it outside the quotation marks.

Have you read the assigned short story, "Flowering Judas"?

No, but I did finally get around to reading last week's assignment, "Where Are They Now?"

But the American convention is always, always, always place the commas and periods inside the quotation marks, whether it's logical or not.

A similar convention is used by those who took Typing 101 in high school and practiced ad nauseum, "The quick brown fox jumped slyly over the lazy dog." Thump. Thump. Hitting that SPACE bar twice after every sentence, because the monospace type of a typewriter made it difficult to read something with only a single space after each sentence. Many people believe that it's still correct, especially in formal writing, to use double spaces between sentences. It's not. It's not necessarily incorrect, either, as per freedom of expression, but if nothing else it pegs the writer as Old School Typing 101.
Click to expand...

The first example is a question...hence the question mark is on the outside of the quotation marks.
2nd example is a question within a statement....

I would do it Turtles way
 
layoutshooter

layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Geez, if this keeps up much longer we are going to have to ask Dreamer for a new sub-forum for the Soapbox. It could be called the punctuation, spelling and grammar forum. It would have to be a sub-forum of the Soapbox because there errors seem to cause as much of a tado as calling Obama a nice guy would! :p
 
layoutshooter

layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
The correct name is "Grammar Police". Notice where the period is. That is the way it is done, period.
 
OntarioVanMan

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
Definition of THO

variant of though

Usage Discussion of THO

While never extremely common, tho and thru have a long history of occasional use as spelling variants of though and through. Their greatest popularity occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when their adoption was advocated by spelling reformers. Their current use occurs chiefly in informal writing (as in personal letters) and in some technical journals.


guess they are saying I am old....LOL
 
OntarioVanMan

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
The correct name is "Grammar Police".

Yes it does because it a whole sentence...a complete statement....
 
AMonger

AMonger

Veteran Expediter
OntarioVanMan said:
The first example is a question...hence the question mark is on the outside of the quotation marks.
2nd example is a question within a statement....

I would do it Turtles way
Click to expand...
I don't know how it's done in Canuckastan, but down here, that's wrong.
 
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