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Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American

erichgrunewald.com

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Re: Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American

#211

Post by dragonwriter »

runeks wrote: post #2

As a programmer, I’d prefer a combination of the two: Dr Johnson kicked a large rock and said, as his foot rebounded, “I refute it thus.”. as I think it’s weird that a punctuation mark inside a quote can end the sentence that contains the quote. I’d argue like this: in the above case there are two sentences, the quote and the sentence that contains the quote. Both need to be terminated with a period.

> I think it’s weird that a punctuation mark inside a quote can end the sentence that contains the quote.

It doesn't. The end quote with a period inside it ends the sentence.

> I’d argue like this: in the above case there are two sentences

There aren't. English doesn't nest or overlap sentences. Ever. Therr are plenty of ways in which English combines multiple units which each could otherwise be their own sentences into more complex sentences, but none of them involve having something which remains a sentence inside a longer sentence.

Re: Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American

#212

Post by croon »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #101
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why it is redundant. There is no reason to assume that the quoted sentence ends the quoting sentence. Imagine this being the last thing you see on a page. Without turning the page, there would be no way of knowing whether the quoting sentence is complete. But these things are just conventions. It's futile to demand any kind of logic or consistency.

Terminating the quoted sentence with a period is redundant, since the closing quotation mark also terminates it.

Then you have no signifier for whether the quote is partial or not. Did you quote part of something someone said or the full sentence?

Re: Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American

#213

Post by mywittyname »

rocqua wrote: post #139
thaumasiotes wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terminating the quoted sentence with a period is redundant, since the closing quotation mark also terminates it.

No, because a quote can contain a sub-sentence. The period adds meaning to the sentence by adding finality. "You are going" has a very different meaning from "You are going.", because the first implies there is something `you` are going to do. Whilst the second implies you are being ordered to leave.

In that case, not capitalizing the word immediately following the quote will work as an indicator that the period is not part of the parent. This doesn't work in the case that the word following is a proper noun. But that's an edge case on something that doesn't really matter.

I agree that maintaining punctuation of the quote is important for context. But outside of the quote, it practically never matters if there is a period or not after the quote. The reader may choose.

> He looks up, "This is it." Bob says, gazing at the sky.

Re: Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American

#214

Post by JasonFruit »

abduhl wrote: post #191
JasonFruit wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you really say, "I tend to agree with the author?" See the problem there? The quoted sentence is not a question, but the outer sentence is; why, then, is the question mark inside the quotation marks? Double punctuation would solve that ambiguity, and would not be redundant. Alternatively, and I'm not sure which is correct, if the question mark is outside the quotation marks, was the quote a complete sentence?

The question mark is supposed to go outside the quote if it is not part of the quote, FYI. Same with exclamation points. Internalizing only happens with periods and commas.

That's what it looked like to me, too, but isn't it telling that we can't treat punctuation consistently?

Re: Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American

#215

Post by leephillips »

runeks wrote: post #2

As a programmer, I’d prefer a combination of the two: Dr Johnson kicked a large rock and said, as his foot rebounded, “I refute it thus.”. as I think it’s weird that a punctuation mark inside a quote can end the sentence that contains the quote. I’d argue like this: in the above case there are two sentences, the quote and the sentence that contains the quote. Both need to be terminated with a period.

As a programmer surely the concept of syntactic sugar is not unfamiliar to you.

Re: Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American

#216

Post by throwaway894345 »

runeks wrote: post #2

As a programmer, I’d prefer a combination of the two: Dr Johnson kicked a large rock and said, as his foot rebounded, “I refute it thus.”. as I think it’s weird that a punctuation mark inside a quote can end the sentence that contains the quote. I’d argue like this: in the above case there are two sentences, the quote and the sentence that contains the quote. Both need to be terminated with a period.

This is what I do as well. The article says it's "redundant and ugly" but I don't think it's redundant at all--it's unambiguous that "I refute it thus." is a full sentence quote that happens to come at the end of a sentence. It's consistent and simple, as opposed to a special rule that says you can elide the outer `.` if (1) the quote ends in a `.` and (2) the quote is the final element of a sentence.

Re: Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American

#217

Post by anandoza »

user-the-name wrote: post #78

The only reason the "American style" exists is a technical workaround: It was easier to damage the expensive lead type used in print shops a century ago if the thin period character was used on the end of the line, rather than the thicker, sturdier quotation mark, so they were swapped as a cost-saving measure. None of this has been relevant for many decades, and people have forgotten the reason for this rule. It was…

What about sentences that end in a period without a quote? That seems like it'd be much more common.

Re: Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American

#218

Post by Izkata »

flurdy wrote: post #129
open-source-ux wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many small differences between English language flavours, it's fascinating. Going off on a tangent, here's a random example... The way brackets/parentheses are referred to in American English vs British English is different. In the US : () = parentheses [] = brackets {} = braces (or curly braces) = angle brackets In the UK : () = brackets (or 'round brackets') [] = square brackets {} = curly brackets = a…

Surely {} = squiggly brackets ?

I work with UK and US people regularly, and despite not being an official name this is the only name for those characters that everyone has automatically understood.

Re: Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American

#219

Post by kevinmgranger »

runeks wrote: post #2

As a programmer, I’d prefer a combination of the two: Dr Johnson kicked a large rock and said, as his foot rebounded, “I refute it thus.”. as I think it’s weird that a punctuation mark inside a quote can end the sentence that contains the quote. I’d argue like this: in the above case there are two sentences, the quote and the sentence that contains the quote. Both need to be terminated with a period.

It sounds like we need a ligature that puts the quotation mark directly over the punctuation.

Re: Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American

#220

Post by BostonFern »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #194
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's less logical even than that. It's almost every word. On the NYT homepage right now, for example, one story is "Justice Dept. Asks Judge to Block Texas From Enforcing Abortion Law". So "From" is capitalised but "to" isn't. Weirdly, scrolling down the page, the technology section appears to go its own way on capitalisation rules: "Apple's new iPhone 13 is better, but not by much." is followed by "Apple Issues Emer…

4-letter-long and above prepositions are capitalized. Can't remember where I got that rule, but they're probably using that; I use it for my music collection.

It's called title case, and it's not determined by the length of a word but by whether or not a word is minor. The rules defining minor words vary slightly between styles, but they're usually prepositions and articles.
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