This, and every discussion on the Dope around what is “correct,” what is “preference,” and what is “the closest thing to usage guidelines from the best style guide” always deteriorate into an argument over why something is to be considered best practice when no absolute standard exists.
DCnDC, your request for an authority beyond Dope comments is rather misguided until you persuade your fellow posters why a “published” opinion should outrank some other approach. I suspect most Dopers would be unimpressed with the default assumption that a “published” opinion is superior.
Back to the problem with quotes.
I’ve argued here on the Dope several times that this particular area of English needs a new and simple approach: Put what is being quoted in quotes. Leave the rest of the construction alone. Duh.
It’s beyond stupid to do otherwise, because doing otherwise obfuscates meaning, and the “Rule” which should always take precedence over all others is to preserve meaning first. That we have done it otherwise for many years, or that it grates because it creates a new construction is no defense to extend any existing “Rule” which promotes a loss of meaning.
“This is a very important concept!” he said.
“This is a very important concept!” he said! He must think he’s the Chief Pedant, or something.
“Why would you do otherwise?” he asked.
“Why would you do otherwise?”! Well, duh…because I like my Published Guidelines. I find such solace in cites, even if what they are citing is stupidity.
Does CP ask, “Can I get your support?”? No he does not. I am unconcerned with your support, and since I have just published a guideline, feel free to change your ways and use me as a cite.
While we are at it we need to stamp out putting the comma and period inside the quote marks. I’d do it more often myself, except for the tedium of replying to all the Lesser Pedants who “correct” me on it.
You are right, there is no “official authority” on this particular subject, but despite the objections of many responders, there is an established, accepted standard.
My point, for the third or fourth time, is that this bullshit:
Did she ask, “Who’s your friend?”?
and
“Did she ask, ‘Who’s your friend?’?”?
is completely and totally unseen except on message boards discussing the subject and avant-garde fiction.
Just because there are no “official” codified rules, no matter what the arguments against it may be or whether they make logical sense to you or not, again, there is an established, accepted standard. That is why you don’t see this shit in newspapers, books, journals, magazines, etc.
You’re all arguing that you’re free to write however you want, and yes, that is true, you may write in any fucked-up way you can imagine, but if you think the “rules” are invalid just because you don’t like them or want to do it a different way, you are very very wrong.
Preach it, Pedant. I’ve long been in favor of this approach. The British “logical quote” style is a start, and I use it by preference. Trying to get people to accept a version of it taken to its logical conclusion is, unfortunately, rather like pounding nails into stone.
DCnDC, you appear to be a pure prescriptivist. I am not entirely unsympathetic: there is definite value in stylistic consistency. The fact that someone has written a way to do a certain thing in a book is not, however, iron-clad proof that it can be done no other way. If, once up on a time, people successfully drove nails with their foreheads, and someone wrote a guide on how best to employ that technique, are we thereby forbidden to try to invent a hammer? Sometimes, the old ways are just old, and “the way we’ve always done it” is less than optimal. If no one changes first, progress comes to a halt.
What part of “my own personal style” in my post did you not understand? Or did Mr. Obama name you the Grammar Czar?
Given your assertion that there is in fact a single acceptable standard, let’s analyze your post (for the purpose of which I’ve added numbers in parentheses to it for ease of reference:
(1) A semicolon is required between independent clauses. To be sure, most editors consider that short clauses may be set off by commas – but that assumes a discretion to writer and editor that contradicts your point.
(2) Nobody on this message board has ever actually posted bovine extrement. And of course the metaphorical use of the phrase to mean “an opinion I disagree strongly with” is a vulgarism not acceptable in good prose.
(3) A sentence should never be broken across multiple lines in prose, though it is acceptable to do so in verse.
(4) Have you read every bit of English language prose in existence, excluding message board posts and avant-garde fiction, including my own writings where I use this in fiction (though of course extremely rarely)? If not, as I presume, that assertion is purely contrary to fact and evidence.
(5) Where is this standard set forth? Who defines it? Who enforces it? If by consensus, what happens when there is disagreement between style guides? I don’t differ with you that there is a standard for formal written English, but I do take exception to the assertion that there is a single acceptable standard: violate it at your peril. Good writers take carefully thought out liberties for appropriate effect all the time.
(6) As with “bullshit,” to the best of my knowledge no on has ever written in a way that itself suffers from the aftereffects of sexual intercourse. And likewise as with “bullshit,” the metaphorical use is a vulgarism out of place in good prose style.
(7) The placing of quotation marks around “rules” implies that you are using the word as a quotation, i.e., that someone else considers and calls them rules but you do not. This is completely contradictory to your own thesis. Your use of quotation marks is therefore a solecism contrary to your own point.
(8) A comma is expected here. By the way, the use of the Oxford comma is itself an argument against your main point: style guides for newspapers and some periodicals require its omission; those for formal academic papers and other writing mandate it. Who’s right? Why are they and not their opponents right? Who decides?
This may seem an overreaction and a tempest in a teapot. It is not. GQ is for factual answers to questions. Among those questions, regularly, is “What’s the proper way to express this?” Neither laissez-faire descriptivism nor schoolmarm-rules prescriptivism is te correct answer: English does conform to grammatical rules, and formal written English adds a certain set of standards to those rules. But it is a matter of taste how to apply them in a way that communicates well. I try in my answers, as do others including Exapno and twixster, to convey what is the generally accepted standard and what variants to it are acceptable – including personal quirks. For example, the use of the dash as in the immeddiately preceding sentence has at least three common variants, all of which are acceptable under varying style guides: spaces before and after, as I customarily do; a space after the dash only; and a dash with no spaces fore or aft. Which is “correct” by your “single acceptable standard”? Why is that the proper usage? Who ruled on it? Why? What is their source of authority?
No, you guys are the ones being prescriptivists by setting out a rule that does not exist in the real world. He’s being a descriptivist by looking at what already exists. He’s saying that, unless you can find a large enough group of people that actually use the rule you’ve created, that you are just making up rules to suit yourself.
I’m not going to argue with your right to use whatever you want. But I do think you need to be very emphatic that it is just your own opinion of how things should be, and not what is generally accepted.
:dubious:
One who claims a style guide to be the final word on a subject in general (as opposed to in connection with a specific publication) can fairly be said to be a prescriptivist. People who say “I like to do it this other way, because I think it makes more sense. I wish it would catch on.” are not prescriptivists.
Neither “descriptivist” nor “prescriptivist” is a dirty word; it should come as no surprise that I favor a harmonious blend of the two. Descriptivism provides a realistic image of the way people actually use language, and prescriptivism codifies and clarifies that usage to help people use the language consistently. Properly balanced, the two enhance clarity and ease of use for everyone. I feel that, unfortunately, we have been overemphasizing prescriptivism for some time, to the detriment of the growth and rationalization of the language.
Fair enough, I suppose. I don’t think this particular issue is that black or white. I tend strongly towards descriptivism when it comes to issues of language, as my posting history here would support. However, written language tends to be more subject to linguistic prescriptions due to the nature of the medium–there’s just more nitpicky crap to be consistent about. That said, my question is still out there: Has anybody ever seen any style guide anywhere use the style suggested by Polycarp for nested interrogatives? Has anybody every seen something like that in print? I know that, to me, it looks horribly ugly and I’ve never ever seen it. From a descriptivist standpoint, I don’t think I’ve ever seen punctuation used in this way, other than as an example on this message board.
FACT: at NO point have I asserted there is a “single” acceptable standard. In fact I have even provided an accepted alternative:
Before you bring up this:
when it comes to punctuation and quotation marks, FACT: 100% of the “style guides” prescribe the same general guideline, being: no matter the presence of quotation marks or not, you only punctuate ONCE. Maybe it’s before the quotation mark, maybe it’s after. The point is, the quotation marks are, in effect, invisible. FACT: Any newspaper, journal, book, anything with an editor applies this general rule. Hence, established, accepted standard. That’s all I’m talking about. But do it any way you want, I don’t give a fuck.
As for the rest of that, as Czar of Grammar I hereby appoint you “Secretary of Nitpicking.”
What made you decide that the source you provided is an accepted alternative as an authority? It expresses only one person’s opinion. (That is my main objection to it.) By whom is it accepted? (I haven’t read the website.)
Ha! After spending hours in medical testing last week, I have come to the same conclusion about the field of medicine. What it needs is new and simple approaches. Something more binary.