> > > I agree in principle on the full stop, but American usage > has it on the > > inside, against all logic. Perhaps I should start a > movement in protest. > > There, I moved. Think it did any good? > > > > And keep your foreign spellings away from our shores, thank > you very much. > > Well then, that explains it. > > I've had arguments with my girlfriend, a former reporter who did some > editing, on this very issue. I say that quotation marks only go after > the full stop if a sentence is being quoted, otherwise it's "word, > quotation marks, then period". There, just like that. > > She says that the period always goes inside the quotes, no > matter what. > > I guess it's just more of that pernicious Americanization of our > language and culture. > > Soon we'll be going to the "theater" down near the "harbor" with our > "neighbors". It's enough to make me want to grab a "lite" beer... > > ;-) > > cheers, > frank
The Oxford Guide to Style is shoulder-to-epaulette with you on this one, Frank. I quote "the relationship in British practice between quotation marks and other marks of punctuation is according to the sense.". It continues "In US practice, commas and full points are set inside the closing quotation mark regardless of whether they are part of the quoted material. The resulting ambiguity can cause editorial problems when using material from US sources in British works.". It then goes into considerable detail about specific rules, but to summarise: we're right and the Americans are wrong. Bob -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
