posted
Hmmm, I have the same problem with punctuation inside or outside of parentheses (sometimes I put them inside, sometimes outside--whichever looks right, I guess?).
Since I tend to overuse parentheses anyway (I use them a LOT!), it's a problem.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
The punctuation goes outside if the parenthetical expression is embedded in a sentence (like this one). (But the punctuation goes inside, when the parenthetical is a complete sentence that stands alone.)
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
The real question is, why don't we do with quote marks what we do with parentheses -- put the period with the part it goes with logically? The British do, and it makes far more sense. (I am aware of the historical reasons (which are actually debated), but you'd think we would have changed it by now, as the British did.)
It really bothers me to put a comma or period inside "phrase quotes," but I do it because I know that's accepted as correct in this country.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
With the quotes, the only two punctuation marks that DON'T follow the British inside/outside rule are the comma and period. All others follow their rule. I think the reasoning is that with quotation marks, the comma and period do double duty if they close the quote AND close the sentence in which the quote is embedded. So stick it inside and forget about it. But with other marks, notably ? and !, you need to clarify whether they are part of the original quote or part of the surrounding sentence.
It was Marx who said, "Religion is the opiate of the people"?
It was Marx who said, "Religion is the opiate of the people?"
Those two have different meanings. In the first one, the speaker is registering surprise that Marx said that; in the second one, Marx is asking the question.
With commas and periods, though, there is never ambiguity about how to read the actual sentence. They just don't carry inflectional meaning the way ? and ! do.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
*nod* True enough. But since the comma or period could reasonably go either place, and not affect the meaning, why not put them where they belong by logic. And not by bizarre rules, which aren't even universal?
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posted
I found a website that had Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto availiable, very fascinating stuff.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Punctuation gives me a headache. After my campaign against pennies is complete (when I rid the US of pennies), I may turn my attention to punctuation.
I'm a problem solver, people, that's what I do.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
New Zealand has no pennies, and they get along just fine. Though some people are now agitating to get rid of their five-cent coins, too. (Can't call them nickels, even historically; and "tins" already has another meaning.)
When I lived in Brazil back in the early 70s, inflation was so bad and coins so valueless that the government didn't bother to mint many of the smaller denominations. Instead, if you were entitled to a few pennies as part of your change, they would let you take some hard candies from a bowl they kept by every register!
As one of my missionary companions said: Brazil, the only nation where balas (hard candy) is legal tender!
It would be quite a challenge to American culinary arts these days to make a candy so bad that it's worth only a penny.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
I concur with rivka. You may be the professional wordsmith, Mr. Card, but you've got a woman on either side glaring at your punctuation preferences. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I'm not glaring. I find the current American usage stupid, but I'll stick with it because it's the accepted usage. I just won't agree that it "looks prettier."
posted
Sigh. I suppose one can't say they've fully lived life until they've been compared to the honourable Cap'n Kirk.
Posts: 1595 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:But since the comma or period could reasonably go either place, and not affect the meaning, why not put them where they belong by logic.
And why not end your questions with question marks?
And I've got your back, Uncle Orson. I definitely think it looks better. It also warms the cockles of my heart to see that some authors care about punctuation and don't just have the attitude of "Oh, I'll let the editor fix it."
[ April 07, 2005, 02:07 PM: Message edited by: Jon Boy ]
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Oops. You're right, Jonathon. Problem was that I split one over-long sentence into two. And only the second one kept the question mark . . . while it looks like they should have traded.
I'll take my 20 lashes with a wet noodle.
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posted
Don't you know that MANY questions end without a question mark!
Most of these rules depend on the degree of formality in your writing. If you're being informal, then the rules of "informal standard English" kick in. Which includes allowing fragments like this one. It's more ... conversational.
By the way, any writer who says, "Oh, I'll let the editor fix it," is inviting disaster. Because EVERY error makes the editor feel less respect for the author, and therefore (quite unconsciously) the editor feels freer to make other "helpful" changes.
I make sure my manuscripts are as clean as possible going in. When an editor realizes that you actually know what you're doing and her job is really just to fix the occasional slipped-thru typo, she has a lighter touch.
Yes, there is a tendency AT FIRST for the editor to think, if she's finding too few fixes to make, that she must be missing something and then she will find errors that aren't really there. But that attitude rarely lasts long with a truly clean manuscript.
If the editor once starts muttering "what an idiot" to herself, the writer can kiss his or her style good-bye, because the editor will soon have it all nicely tidied up according to the boneheaded pseudo-rules she learned in school: To never split infinitives, for instance, or what words are ok to end a sentence with.
quote:... the writer can kiss his or her style good-bye, because the editor will soon have it all nicely tidied up according to the boneheaded pseudo-rules she learned...
Orson, or anybody, how do you decide when to use "he" vs "her" vs "his or her" when it doesn't matter?
I've seen style points that say "use 'she' and 'her' occasionally [or randomly] to refer to indefinite genders, where it doesn't matter or it isn't relevent." And others prefer "his or her." But I haven't absorbed it yet.
So you agree with this? Of course, dialogue is different, depending on the character, but do you alternate genders in your writing as a general rule, as in your post above?
posted
Scott, why can't I edit more authors like you?
————
Morbo: The general rule in formal writing is to use "his or her" (or "her or his" to mix things up). Alternating between "his" and "her" can be awkward because it draws too much attention to itself.
Sometimes you can get away with making the subject plural and then legitimately using "their" afterwards ("writers can kiss their style goodbye"), but that isn't always doable. I pray for the day when the generic, singular, non-gender-specific "they" becomes acceptable in formal writing.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Aw, forget those silly "Miss Thistlebottom" rules that never applied to REAL English, ever, period.
I used "she" for the editor because the vast majority of copy editors are, in fact, female.
The "he or she" is ok if you use it once; but as a sentence or paragraph gets more elaborate, and you have to keep piling up the heorshe himorher references, you eventually give up and find a way to rewrite - usually with plurals.
Here's the change that will eventually win: We will do with the speculative third-person pronoun what we did with the second person: We will take the plural to refer to the singular.
In other words, we'll say, "When an editor is looking at a clean manuscript, they'll make fewer changes." Right now that feels glaringly wrong, especially because it's so easy to say, "When editors look at clean manuscripts, they'll make fewer changes." But as we get used to the need for a neuter speculative pronoun, for hypothetical INDIVIDUALS, we'll get more and more used to feeling "they" and "them" and "their" as a singular as well as as a plural.
Most people don't even REALIZE any more that YOU is the OBJECT form of the second person PLURAL. The SUBJECT should be "ye," and the singular is Thou and Thee, which take a whole different verb - "Thou toldest me a lie, thou rotten little varlet, thou!"
But there has to have been a time of transition. It was pushed by a social need: the second person plural was used to speak UPWARD in social caste - addressing kings by the plural forms. This respectful plural migrated downward until thou was used only for intimates and inferiors, and then not at all. (Except to God, who was addressed in the singular for "God is one" reasons.)
We also have a compelling reason to find a neutral third person that nevertheless does not imply nonhumanity - we can't use "it" because it suggests nonpersonhood. Either our worries about sexism will fade, or our grammar will change to accommodate the social need.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
That's what I'm here for. That, and to promote Heinz ketchup awareness.
Did you know that Heinz is the one true ketchup? All others, though they may pretend to be ketchup, and may even become ketchup in name, are catsup. For a small fee, representatives of the Ketchup Kingdom will come to your home and educate your palate to reject all such imitators... Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Sometimes one does not do what one can. Often one may find that one uses "you" instead of "one". One may even find that children are not taught about the "one" phrasing (along with all the other grammar they are not taught) in schools.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Ketchup on cheesecake. *gags* Not that I don't like ketchup; it's just that combination sounds comepletely disgusting. Ketchup is still wonderful though.
Posts: 132 | Registered: Apr 2005
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“...‘De vita desperabat’, they will say, ‘quod stultus Cæsar erat’.”
I like to combine both systems in my own punctuation logic (using many semi-colons, just like the Bible's - "Etnahta" cantillation mark), and have it asthetic as well. That means that I have my own system of quotes' Punctuation:
Option One:
When before the quote you have a streaming clause, and when the quote does not end the sentence, I use this:
John said - "I think that this system is stupid" <sentence completion>.
Option Two:
The same conditions, but the quote ends the sentence:
John said, "I think that this system is stupid".
Option Three:
When the quote ends the sentence, but is not a streaming continuation from the previous part of the sentence:
John said the following: "I think that this system is stupid."
Option Four:
Like Options One and Two, but in - "story style".
"I think", John said, "that this system is stupid".
Option Five:
Option Three in - "story style".
"I thought the issue through", John stated. "And I've reached the conclusion that this system is stupid."
---
As for dual-layer quotes, never have "<.'">" or "<'".>"! Always, always have it "<'.">"!
Posts: 2978 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:I used "she" for the editor because the vast majority of copy editors are, in fact, female.
Very true. In one of my editing classes, I was the only male in the class.
But you know what else our language needs? A distinction between inclusive and exclusive we; that is, different words for "you and I" and "he/she/it/they and I." That way you could do things like talk to someone about our kids (yours and your wife's) without the awkwardness of implying that you and that someone have kids together. Of you could say that we (you and I but not those guys) are going to go do something, and it would be clear who you were talking about.
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