[OT] The 2006 Wireless Networking Summit

[OT] The 2006 Wireless Networking Summit - Typo

Posted Apr 11, 2006 19:26 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
In reply to: [OT] The 2006 Wireless Networking Summit - Typo by smitty_one_each
Parent article: The 2006 Wireless Networking Summit

Continuing the off-topic meta-discussion:

You incorrectly think that there was a British standard that Webster decided to deviate from. In the 18th century, spelling was a free-for-all; even highly educated English-speaking writers on both sides of the Atlantic didn't even follow consistent spelling for the same word in the same document. There was no standard, and the two great standardizers (Webster in the US, Johnson in Britain) made different decisions.

Furthermore, many "Americanisms" represent an older British use, for example, the American pronounciation of "schedule". And the British OED blesses "-ize" in most cases over "-ise", even for British English (Canadian reference picked for neutrality), for words of Latin/Greek origin, though modern Brits put "-ise" everywhere as a reaction against the Americans, even though, as the OED shows, they didn't do so in times past.

In this particular case, I do think that the British approach to punctuation in quotes is more logical.

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[OT] The 2006 Wireless Networking Summit - Typo

Posted Apr 11, 2006 23:32 UTC (Tue) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

I believe the convention for including punctuation within quotations was more of an acquiescence to typographical necessity rather than a grammatical choice. Apparently in old mechanical fixed type it was more aethetically pleasing to put punctuation before closing quotes.

In the age of modern typography it seems obvious to me that logical quoting should be accepted as the new standard.

[OT] The 2006 Wireless Networking Summit - Typo

Posted Apr 14, 2006 17:15 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

I don't think it has anything to do with old mechanical fixed type, and as the comment says a few words later, it was about aesthetics, not necessity.

Even in a modern newspaper or Word document, the comma looks nicer inside the quotes, unless you're a mathematician and the extreme illogicalness of it hurts your eyes.

Incidentally, for those seeing this rule for the first time: It applies to all punctuation, not just commas. And there's a similar rule of American typography that says when entire sentences are in parentheses, the period for the last one goes after the closing parenthesis.

So this panda walks into a bar...

Posted Apr 15, 2006 20:00 UTC (Sat) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]

No, no, I'm not going to do the whole joke; Lynne Truss doesn't need to sell any more books. :-)

[OT] The 2006 Wireless Networking Summit - Typo

Posted Apr 19, 2006 15:23 UTC (Wed) by roelofs (guest, #2599) [Link]

Incidentally, for those seeing this rule for the first time: It applies to all punctuation, not just commas.

Not true. From Warriner's: Colons and semicolons are always placed outside the closing quotation marks (section 21g(2) of Fourth Course, at least in my edition). Also: Question marks and exclamation points are placed inside the closing quotation marks if the quotation is a question or exclamation. Otherwise they are placed outside (section 21g (3)). Turabian concurs (section 5.17 of Fifth Edition).

And there's a similar rule of American typography that says when entire sentences are in parentheses, the period for the last one goes after the closing parenthesis.

I question that as well; Warriner's discourages such usage in the first place but does say, Put punctuation marks within the parentheses when they belong to the parenthetical matter (section 22o). Turabian doesn't seem to address the issue, although I may simply have missed it.

Greg