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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

#341

Post by arp242 »

Igelau wrote: post #330
ARandomerDude wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s an æsthetic choice in the end. Æsthetic is misplaced pedantry, since the word comes from Greek through German, rather than Latin. https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=aesthetic

> misplaced pedantry Them's mighty strong words there. > since the word comes from Greek through German, rather than Latin. That's not a rule. Remember, this is language. It does seems like a dated spelling though, similar to "coöperate". It shows up in 19th century publishing.

I still see it in some publications on occasion, but it's rare. I often write it as "coöperate" myself as well; it clarifies that the ö starts a new syllable and that it's "co-operate" rather than "coo-perate" with a single long o sound: it's just something you need to know. I find it regrettable that this has fallen out of favour, and especially with English becoming the de-facto world language I think there's some value in making the spelling and pronunciation closer when possible.

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

#342

Post by arp242 »

teddyh wrote: post #273

Hackers tend to use quotes as balanced delimiters like parentheses, much to the dismay of American editors. Thus, if “Jim is going” is a phrase, and so are “Bill runs” and “Spock groks”, then hackers generally prefer to write: “Jim is going”, “Bill runs”, and “Spock groks”. This is incorrect according to standard American usage (which would put the continuation commas and the final period inside the string quotes); h…

I've always written it in "British style" myself because that's what we do in Dutch and I never considered there might be another way to do things, and it wasn't until someone "corrected" me just a few years ago that I even noticed the "American style" exists, in spite of having read countless books and articles which use it. Even now, when reading something I don't really notice unless I pay attention to it.

Based on this, I think it doesn't really matter, either in aesthetics or clarity.

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

#343

Post by dredmorbius »

TillE wrote: post #288
macdice wrote: post #70

Another stupid detail like this that immediately tells you that text is from America is the capitalisation of every word in a title. Compare the front page of the NY Times with the front pages from any other English speaking country and you see the contrast. I didn't check, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Canadians go both ways at random ;-)

A weird thing British papers do is de-capitalize acronyms. It's a useful signal for pronunciation, but it's also just...wrong? Like, the agency is called NASA, not Nasa.

The UK practise is for initialisms to be capiitalised and acronyms, which are prounced rather than spelled out, to have an initial capital (when rerfering to a proper noun) but lower-cased following.

So "Nasa", but "FBI".

There's some adoption of this in US English, though typically for words which have fallen into normal use and don't identify specific organisations or entities: scuba, radar, sonar, laser.

The UK style isn't uniform in all cases, particularly where initialism are pronouced with a mix of spelled-out letters and pronounced terms. So "HIV", but "Aids" (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/01/through-posi...). I believe much US military usage falls under this pattern, as with USAMRID or USCENTCOM. In the latter case, The Guardian chooses the entirely consistent ... "USCentcom".

The same source gives us "GBU-43/B or Moab, known as the 'mother of all bombs'". https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/15/us-mother-of-a...

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

#344

Post by [deleted] »

arp242 wrote: post #341
Igelau wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> misplaced pedantry Them's mighty strong words there. > since the word comes from Greek through German, rather than Latin. That's not a rule. Remember, this is language. It does seems like a dated spelling though, similar to "coöperate". It shows up in 19th century publishing.

I still see it in some publications on occasion, but it's rare. I often write it as "coöperate" myself as well; it clarifies that the ö starts a new syllable and that it's "co-operate" rather than "coo-perate" with a single long o sound: it's just something you need to know. I find it regrettable that this has fallen out of favour, and especially with English becoming the de-facto world language I think there's some…

[deleted]

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

#345

Post by beckerdo »

Xen0byte wrote: post #172
beckerdo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This brings up a point related to the double-period/redundancy discussion above. In a slight adjustment of this example, what if the text were a question and the quotation were a statement. Would this be a good construct: Why did Jake believe "the AI was going to kill us all."? Similarly you could have a text statement with a quoted question: Jake asked "would the AI kill us all?".

Very good counter-argument to the non-sensical punctuation mark redundancy argument.

Also there are the possibilities for various questions and exclamations.

Why did Jake ask "Can I have another biscuit?"?

I was frightened when Jake shouted "Who are you?"!

My trousers were soiled when Jake shouted "Boo!"!

Why did I soil my trousers when Jake shouted "Boo!"?

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

#346

Post by philsnow »

quesera wrote: post #306
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?

Also awkward: Did you ask, "Is this your dog?"?

To me, seeing that punctuation is soothing. It's finding another person who I know thinks the same way I do, if only about this one, pedantic thing.

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

#347

Post by kevwil »

I am American and can't help but wonder if this is a subtle British joke. This is just poor grammar based on how I was taught, so perhaps some Brits think it's cheeky to call it "American Style", like an American calling a dull stick a "British toothbrush". If so, well played. If not, no harm done, just don't use "American Style".

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

#348

Post by motohagiography »

I switch between the american style for persuasion, and the british style for precision. Am also Canadian, so a metanational approach is normal here. I also keep copies of the Chicago Manual and Strunk & White, which are useful for knowing which rules to break. Ain't never had much of a problem, consequently.

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

#350

Post by pge »

robotresearcher wrote: post #337
tablespoon wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just use American-style except in cases where it would introduce confusion, since it does in fact look better on the page.

Not if you are used to the British style. Here's something that might clinch it for you: Does this "look better on the page"? Does this "look better on the page?" The former must be correct, since the quote was not a question, and turning it into one would not be a fair quotation. Why should its status as a question change where we put the end of sentence marker? The same argument applies to the period, since the quo…

Note that both American and British usage put a question mark outside the quotation marks. Only periods and commas are placed within the quotation marks in American style.
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