Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Witherweaver]

So my primary job is making up various documentation on our quantitative models and methods.  Basically, I edit and author math-type papers in LaTeX.  But technical grammar and style guides are pretty relevant, too, as these are published to our clients and need to look professional, etc.  I had this big argument with my boss that putting punctuation inside quotations is fucking retarded, because it is.  I know that it's a rule in American English, but seeing as it's a stupid-ass rule, I choose to ignore it.

I basically think that, since the rest of the English-speaking world does this correctly, and we only have some bastardized form of the rule inspired by outdated typesetting, we should be able to choose whether or not we want to use it.  (Like you would choose whether you want to follow a style that uses the Oxford comma or not.)  Moreover, because we're a software company, we may want to refer to literal strings inside quotes, and in some cases those literal strings could contain punctuation.  (In general I would usu some other syntax highlighting and not use quotes for this type of thing, but it could potentially come up.)  It seems natural to me that any punctuation not part of the literal string should go outside of the quotes that contain the literal string.

Has anyone ever come across this "rule" being ignored in American publications?

(If any non-Americans are confused, we have this stupid rule where commas and periods that immediately follow quoted text are moved inside that text.  So where as you would say:

This phenomenon is referred to as the "twin paradox".  Blah blah next sentence.

A third-grade English teacher in America would make their students write:

This phenomenon is referred to as the "twin paradox."  Blah blah next sentence.

It seems pretty clear to me that the former is correct, regardless of what textbooks say.)

[sudgy]

I've started disobeying that rule too, except in school papers, or when it's quoting people talking (which I think is what the rule was meant for).

[Witherweaver]

When quoting people directly, punctuation should be placed according to whether it is part of the quote or not.  The "rule" of placing periods and commas inside quotes comes from historical typesetting, or at least that's how the story goes:

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/150703/why-is-the-period-placed-inside-the-double-quote-at-the-end-of-a-sentence

The explanation for putting the period/full stop inside the quotation marks goes back to the early days of printing in Europe, back in the 1500s.

Each character in a printed line of text - letter, number, punctuation mark - came from a separate piece of metal type. All the individual pieces of metal were lined up on a template for printing (like this). The pieces of metal for each character were different sizes, depending on the character on the metal. An "m" was wider than an "i", for example. And, a full stop / period (.) was on a very small piece of metal.

When the punctuation was done as usual, the full stop / period was placed at the end of the line of type, after the quotation mark character. However, in this position at the end, the small piece of metal carrying the full stop would often fall off or even break. Therefore, printers starting putting the full stop before the final quotation mark, to stop it falling off or breaking.

This practice was in place well before 1600, when the first English colonists set out for the American continent.

The English in America and the English in Britain both put the period inside the final quotation mark for the next few hundred years. However, sometime during the 1800s and 1900s, when typesetting was done more on large machines and then computers, the British people went back to putting the full stop outside the final quote. The Americans did not change back.

Therefore, modern British English has the full stop outside the final quotation mark (the "logical quote") while modern American English has the period inside the final quotation mark (the "typesetters' quote").

[ashersky]

vote: witherweaver

I completely and utterly support punctuation being inside the quotation marks.  If needed, I would dedicate a not insignificant portion of my life to ensuring that practice continues.

Randomly floating, unconnected punctuation is terrible and evil.  That's what a period all alone outside the quotation marks is.

[Witherweaver]

Um.. it's not "randomly".  The punctuation is not part of the literal string.  Very straightforward here.

[qmech]

vote: witherweaver

I completely and utterly support punctuation being inside the quotation marks.  If needed, I would dedicate a not insignificant portion of my life to ensuring that practice continues.

Randomly floating, unconnected punctuation is terrible and evil.  That's what a period all alone outside the quotation marks is.

How do you feel about quotation marks floating randomly outside the boundaries of the sentence?

[GendoIkari]

This phenomenon is referred to as the "twin paradox."  Blah blah next sentence.

See, even though I know this is technically correct, as a programmer it looks to me like this:

<b>Bold word <i>bold italicized word</b></i>

Basically, the things (the sentence and the quote mark) are not being closed in a first-in-last-out way.

[Witherweaver]

This phenomenon is referred to as the "twin paradox."  Blah blah next sentence.

See, even though I know this is technically correct, as a programmer it looks to me like this:

<b>Bold word <i>bold italicized word</b></i>

Basically, the things (the sentence and the quote mark) are not being closed in a first-in-last-out way.

Right; this is also an issue.

[liopoil]

I go to school in America and have always been taught (IIRC) to put them outside the quotation marks. Putting them inside would be like the missing right paren in the above sentence.

[Witherweaver]

I go to school in America and have always been taught (IIRC to put them outside the quotation marks. Putting them inside would be like the missing right paren in the above sentence.

Five months from now I'm going to be playing a Mafia game with you and be up at night torturing over "IS LIO STILL SPEAKING PARENTHETICALLY OR NOT?!?!?!??!".

[liopoil]

I go to school in America and have always been taught (IIRC to put them outside the quotation marks. Putting them inside would be like the missing right paren in the above sentence.

Five months from now I'm going to be playing a Mafia game with you and be up at night torturing over "IS LIO STILL SPEAKING PARENTHETICALLY OR NOT?!?!?!??!".

If you look closely enough, it's there.

[Witherweaver]

Interestingly, I don't think any style does what I did above.  There seems to be a "if you end a sentence in a quote and the quote has punctuation then don't punctuate the sentence" rule in all styles, which is also a little odd.  But one battle at a time.

[Eevee]

vote: witherweaver

I completely and utterly support punctuation being inside the quotation marks.  If needed, I would dedicate a not insignificant portion of my life to ensuring that practice continues.

Randomly floating, unconnected punctuation is terrible and evil.  That's what a period all alone outside the quotation marks is.

vote: ashersky

Totes staging a pre-planned fight here. Classic.

[ashersky]

vote: witherweaver

I completely and utterly support punctuation being inside the quotation marks.  If needed, I would dedicate a not insignificant portion of my life to ensuring that practice continues.

Randomly floating, unconnected punctuation is terrible and evil.  That's what a period all alone outside the quotation marks is.

vote: ashersky

Totes staging a pre-planned fight here. Classic.

Definitely not a "staged fight."  That'd be "ridiculous and crazy."

[ashersky]

vote: witherweaver

I completely and utterly support punctuation being inside the quotation marks.  If needed, I would dedicate a not insignificant portion of my life to ensuring that practice continues.

Randomly floating, unconnected punctuation is terrible and evil.  That's what a period all alone outside the quotation marks is.

How do you feel about quotation marks floating randomly outside the boundaries of the sentence?

The quotation mark isn't outside the boundary of the sentence, it completes the sentence.  It's ironic to me that the supporters of throwing the punctuation out are using parentheses as an argument against me, when it is in fact supporting me.  The quotation marks are like the arms of a hugger.  When you separate the arm from the rest of the body, the hug becomes one-armed, and you get sprayed in blood from the other side.

My point is, keep both arms attached to the sentence.

[ashersky]

I feel so strongly about this, in fact, that I would prefer to be stabbed in the face with a fork than have this rule changed.

I guess that's what I get for being the lone English major in a sea of computer/math people.

[Eevee]

Unvote

Ashersky has convinced me. I can't help it, his argument just reads super genuine to me.

Death to one-armed hugs.

[Witherweaver]

vote: witherweaver

I completely and utterly support punctuation being inside the quotation marks.  If needed, I would dedicate a not insignificant portion of my life to ensuring that practice continues.

Randomly floating, unconnected punctuation is terrible and evil.  That's what a period all alone outside the quotation marks is.

How do you feel about quotation marks floating randomly outside the boundaries of the sentence?

The quotation mark isn't outside the boundary of the sentence, it completes the sentence.  It's ironic to me that the supporters of throwing the punctuation out are using parentheses as an argument against me, when it is in fact supporting me.  The quotation marks are like the arms of a hugger.  When you separate the arm from the rest of the body, the hug becomes one-armed, and you get sprayed in blood from the other side.

My point is, keep both arms attached to the sentence.

Uh, the quotes are hugging the word, not the punctuation (which doesn't belong to the word). 

[sudgy]

Well, think about this.  Something in quotation marks can be thought of as one functional entity in a sentence.  If we let quotation = "some phrase" (that's not a complete sentence, so no punctuation is necessary at the end), then the sentence 'We are talking about "some phrase."' doesn't have quotation in it, because quotation equals "some phrase", not "some phrase.".  If we wrote the sentence 'We are talking about "some phrase".', however, we could put quotation in there to make it 'We are talking about quotation.'.  Now, IF the quote ends in a period (say quote = "This is what I said.") then I do think it should be 'I just said, "This is what I said."', not 'I just said, "This is what I said.".'.  But, that still leaves the problem of if we wanted to replace "This is what I said." with quote, do we kill the period to make it 'I just said, quote' or do we add in a period for some unknown reason to make it say 'I just said, quote.'  I don't know.

I honestly don't know what I was trying to accomplish when typing this, but it suddenly became glorious.

[theory]

Putting punctuation outside quotes is called "logical punctuation" for a reason: it's the logical thing to do.  Any other approach is madness driven by aesthetics and not reason.

To be honest I dislike the practice of even calling it "putting punctuation outside quotes".  What it really is is "putting punctuation in the right spot". 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Logical_quotation_on_Wikipedia

ashersky: what do you think about commas, periods, semicolons, colons, em dashes, question marks, and exclamation points?  Which of those go inside and which go outside?  Why?

[Witherweaver]

vote: witherweaver

I completely and utterly support punctuation being inside the quotation marks.  If needed, I would dedicate a not insignificant portion of my life to ensuring that practice continues.

Randomly floating, unconnected punctuation is terrible and evil.  That's what a period all alone outside the quotation marks is.

How do you feel about quotation marks floating randomly outside the boundaries of the sentence?

The quotation mark isn't outside the boundary of the sentence, it completes the sentence.  It's ironic to me that the supporters of throwing the punctuation out are using parentheses as an argument against me, when it is in fact supporting me.  The quotation marks are like the arms of a hugger.  When you separate the arm from the rest of the body, the hug becomes one-armed, and you get sprayed in blood from the other side.

My point is, keep both arms attached to the sentence.

And this argument is obviously terrible.  If quotation marks "completing the sentence are a thing, why don't they then gobble up everything until the sentence is complete?"

[Witherweaver]

In fact, adopting the American style is such a fucking stupid ass thing to do that it makes me want to go kick my boss in the nuts.

Notably, I have now eschewed using quotations marks in my papers and have moved towards using italics if it's really necessary. 

[ashersky]

Putting punctuation outside quotes is called "logical punctuation" for a reason: it's the logical thing to do.  Any other approach is madness driven by aesthetics and not reason.

To be honest I dislike the practice of even calling it "putting punctuation outside quotes".  What it really is is "putting punctuation in the right spot". 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Logical_quotation_on_Wikipedia

ashersky: what do you think about commas, periods, semicolons, colons, em dashes, question marks, and exclamation points?  Which of those go inside and which go outside?  Why?

Everything inside the quote.

If I were listing a series of "thing A," "thing B," and "thing C," I'd make sure the commas were all inside the quotation marks.

Aesthetics matter.  That's the difference between me and everyone else, I guess.  Having the punctuation outside the quotation marks is jarring and ugly.  It is an insult to the soul (if you believe it such things).

[sudgy]

How is it ugly?  They both have something kind of sitting away from the rest of the sentence.

[sudgy]

In fact, because a quotation mark is bigger, I think it would be better to have that closer to the rest of things.