Where should the commas and periods go?
I’ve been putting them outside for so long, it would be hard to change, but I agree that it’s not logical to do so (particularly as a sometime Unix programmer). As a colonial, though, I do resent doing it “British style.” Didn’t we fight a couple wars over that sort of thing? I think we even won at least one of them. Next they’ll demand that we add superfluous “u”s to words.
wut s punctshn
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
I don’t care what the Limeys do, I put sentence-level punctuation outside. And I wince every time I do it, because I had the “American style” beaten into me, so I know I am in open rebellion with the grammar cops. But the function of quotation marks (from my programmer’s perspective) is to “tokenize” the words in quotes, i.e. convert them to a logical unit. Putting a period inside a quote that ends a sentence is like the horrid C notation for explicit type conversion. In C ones writes “(float) i” to convert i to floating point while in Fortran one writes “float(i)”. (Using American grammar, one would write “float(i).”)
Not everything American is better 😉
Am I reading your meaning wrong?
“For at least two centuries, it has been standard practice in the United States to place commas and periods inside of quotation marks”.
It’s the British style that puts the commas and periods outside the quotation marks, and that’s the system considered more logical.
I prefer the British style, though I still use the American in more formal writing.
“It’s the British style that puts the commas and periods outside the quotation marks, and that’s the system considered more logical.”
I was taught in Australia that ” , and ” is incorrect too. Either the comma or the “and” in your example is redundant.
You’re probably right, I’m the last to claim good grammar.
You’re overthinking it. English grammar has nothing to do with “being logical.” I realize I’m talking to a bunch of engineers and computer programmars, who can’t even make a sandwich without using a slide rule, but just go with me here. Just follow some country’s grammar rules more or less consistently — England’s, Scotland’s, Canada’s, ours, I don’t care what. It doesn’t matter. Your computer won’t explode, and nobody except anal-retentive pedants (who may be safely ignored) will care.
Of more importance are the needless spelling confusion involving words that sound alike or almost alike but have very different meanings and different spellings. It’s not just “they’re, there, and their” which are being abused all over the place, but words like “flaunt” and “flout,” which have near opposite meanings to each other (if you don’t know, the first one means to “show off” a characteristic or accomplishment, and the second one means to “prevent” something from happening — “I flouted his attempt to flaunt his promotion”). I had someone tell me that it was okay to confuse the two — that they now meant more or less the same thing. Uh, no.
I had someone tell me that it was okay to confuse the two — that they now meant more or less the same thing. Uh, no.
Don’t get me started on “imply” and “infer.” Or “loose” and “lose.”
Oh, another favorite — “dribble” for “drivel.”
You won’t find periods outside of quotation marks in the Bible, pal, and if it was good enough for God, it damn well better be good enough for you!!!
I just realized I spelled “programmers” wrong — as “programmars.” Heh.
As I walk through the valley of the prescriptivists I shall fear no evil…
😉
I hate to make a link and have an off color little , or . hanging outside so I put all my punctuation inside of quotes of parenthesis. I don’t always like it but I am “consistent”.
Perhaps the better attitude to take is to simply write in one’s own style without wringing one’s hands over whether it matches an arbitrary set of bullet-points written by committee nearly a hundred years ago. Or indeed to care whether it’s the “correct” way, the “American” way, the “British” way, or whatever.
Mind you, this is not a prescription for laziness, or reckless avant-garde nonsense, as many people would take the libery to assume. The purpose of writing is communication, and any style which can serve that goal by communicating an idea in an edifying or entertaining manner cannot be delegitimized by reference to the Chicago Manual of Style (or whatever your preferred prescriptive text is). The people who write those style guides are essentially trying to take on the role of the French Academy.
(For reference, I myself put the punctuation outside quotes unless the punctuation mark is itself integral to the quoted material. So I’m pleased to see people turning toward that notion.)
The British style looks odd to me, but does make sense.
Aaaaa! Dribble! Yes! It causes an inward scream of anguish.
Another scream-inducing lapse is the ever-popular, “and that begs the question,” followed by a question. Aaaaa!
And writing “lead” instead of “led.”
So disturbing.
“Do you herd sheep?” my grandma sighed.
My grandpa leapt in fright.
“That grammar’s wrong!” to me he cried.
“‘Have you heard sheep?’ is right!”
— from The Pogo Papers (I think it was)
In regards to commas, the correct placement is where you make the pause. If you are the kind of speaker who pauses after saying “and”, then certainly feel free to place a comma there. I usually only do so when trying to cause suspense. For example: I’ve met Mr Zubrin and, I enjoyed speaking to him.
With the comma before instead of after, the sentence has a different meaning. I think most literate people recognize that difference and appreciate it, so why not use it?
I’ve always been an “outie” unless the punctuation is part of the sentence or phrase … But then I use thru, tho, altho (all part of the preferred gov’t spellings) … I use the Oxford comma (also known as the serial comma) … but I don’t get upset if others don’t.
My pet peeves … incorrectly using “myself” when it should be “I” or “me” and “yourself” when it should be “you” and using “less” when it clearly should be “fewer”.
/sigh
Series, compound sentences, dependent clauses, parenthetical elements, coordinating adjectives, adjective clauses and quotes.