361–370 of 393 posts
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If a quote is incomplete and a meaningful part is omitted there are other typographical conventions to indicate that, like a double period .. for example
I've never seen a double period used to mean anything. An ellipsis is a specific mark made by three periods. Or is this a Britishism?
I genuinely love how American, Australian, and British, English all differ in these subtle ways. I think another example that gets me is: `e.g.` vs `e.g.,` MS Word favours the `e.g.,` which I never see in Australian English.
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…
I'm not sure why the British one feels more logical to you, but I don't feel strongly drawn to either so probably it's more about familiarity.
> Plus, the word 'parentheses' is a mouthful :-)
There's a certain flow to the term "parenthetical" that I enjoy too! Alas I am entirely too parenthetic in my own writing and thus spend an annoying amount of time eliding the parentheticals :)
Grownups don't worry about this stuff. Just like they don't worry about which programming language style guide to use. If you're writing for an American audience, use American style. If you're writing for a British audience, use British style. If you're writing a journal article, or for a business, use whatever style everyone else there uses. If you're writing for yourself, use what you like.
Community guidelines[0]:
- When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
- Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Insinuating that anyone who wishes to discuss this topic isn't a "grownup" seemingly violates two maybe three guidelines. Your comment without the first sentence would have been more constructive.
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".
OP: When in Rome, do as the Greeks do because their way is better.
And of course the "Greek" part of the Empire survived for a thousand years after the Western part petered out.
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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…
It's not a "used to" thing. The British style introduces white space gaps that don't look good. It's like ending a sentence with a space .
> The former must be correct
IMHO, "correctness" in the sense of "here's exact the character string that occurred in that other document, and anything else is wrong," is kind of a programmer POV. A looser sense of correctness is perfectly fine.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Not if you are used to the British style. It's not a "used to" thing. The British style introduces white space gaps that don't look good. It's like ending a sentence with a space . > The former must be correct IMHO, "correctness" in the sense of "here's exact the character string that occurred in that other document, and anything else is wrong," is kind of a programmer POV. A looser sense of correctness is perfectl…
Sure they do, to me. The comma you inserted between the end of the quote and the closing quotation mark looks bad to me, because I have a strong expectation of the opposite. That esthetic feeling you have is how 'used to' manifests.
Also the US spelling of 'esthetic' is ugly to those expecting 'aesthetic'. I'm sure the British spelling looks pretentious to Americans.