… it makes cruising at the grocery store soooooooooo difficult sometimes.
Esprix
Hmmm… I thought you guys already had all sorts of sophisticated secret signal systems to warn of incoming fabulousness.
Well…what do you want, perhaps a set of gay bells like the “bear bells” hikers use for bears to let them know you’re coming down the trail.
Maybe you’re just not gay enough.
Net etiquette: does the period go inside or outsidt the asterisks?
Grammar weenie reply -
since the asterisks are punctuation akin to quotation marks, the period goes inside.
The whole probem can be avoided, however, by using {i} and {/i} around your word to create italics for emphasis, instead of using asterisks. (Replacing the {} with , of course. :D)
Then you can put the period wherever you want.
Esprix - I bet it wasn’t you that wasn’t gay enough at the grocery store.
Spree is plenty gay. He keeps refusing to have sex with me, and therefore cruises the grocery store. The bastard.
And the period goes outside of the asterisks. If it were quotation marks just around a word, as well. If they were around an entire sentence, then the period would go inside.
Ginger, check your style manual. Mine says that at the end of a sentence the period goes inside, not outside, unless there is “special emphasis needed.” (WhateverTF that means.)
And I still say bolding and italicizing solves the whole problem.
But not the invisible minority problem.
Is this a corrolary of Gaudere’s Law, or a different one altogether?
That bolding problem wasn’t supposed to happen. I quoted the whole message.
Oh, well, my not being rich, witty or good looking wasn’t supposed to happen either.
Whatever happened to Gaydar? Didn’t it catch on with you guys?
From the link:
Your minority is not particularly invisible here nor on #straightdope. Stop yer bitching.
It’s the Holidaze, Honey; decorate your cart! 
I was going to say that you’re probably both right, with SisterCoyote’s advice probably being more suitable for Abe Babe. There are two systems. GingerOfTheNorth is advocating the ‘logical’ system, which conforms with, for example, the Australian Government Publishing Service style manual. They probably use the same system in Canada. SisterCoyote is using the ‘conventional’ system, which seems as though it applies to U.S. circles, which is where Abe Babe lives. But I think that SisterCoyote has misapplied her system. By using asterisks, Abe Babe was indeed trying for ‘special emphasis’, so under either system the period should go outside the punctuation marks.
As a further hijack,we could possibly try to conform to U.S. conventions on this board, but as it also helps to break down ignorance if we see different english systems in use, I will use the ‘logical’ system – or try to, Gaudere’s rule notwithstanding.
Perhaps Esprix could develop his own ‘style’, and use it on T-shirts etc as a subtle signal to potential soul mates. ‘Enough all ready’ comes to mind.
…Whu…wha…who said that!!!.
Oh great, it’s asterisks instead of underscores to do ascii emphasis. Hell I still don’t even know if it’s supposed to be fabulous or fabulous. It’s hell being straight, male and white, we aren’t hip to anything.
I have this overwhelming urge to apologize to Esprix for hijacking his entire thread.
Abe - your whole thread was bold because my whole thread was bold because (like a ninny) I left a closing tag off the bolding of Ginger’s name.
Remember, the computer does what you tell it to, not what you want it to.
Why do I see the beginning of a porno right here?
“Say… that’s quite a load of … sausage you’ve got there…”
Uh, Esprix, speaking as someone who’s seen your “Snoopy” picture . . . I don’t think you’re that invisible.
No. I have a mental picture of Esprix looking over the cucumbers while he’s keeping one eye on a cute asian man-boy pushing the cart a few feet away near the kohlrabi. Esprix looks up to “share a moment” with this dreamy guy, tapping the cucumber lightly but meaningfully with his forefinger as he gazes shyly across the chard to meet his gaze.
Suddenly like the flapping wings of a murder of crows, there is an explosion of unintelligible sounds and a young woman with child in tow moves in chattering to Esprix’s intended in Cantonese. The little family moves off towards the deli counter and Esprix’s cucumber tapping stops in mid tap, his lips pursed in embarassed annoyance.
“God he was so pretty” thinks Esprix. “Ah it’s just as well, I’ll bet he would have been high maintenance”. Eyes forward, hands firmly gripping the shopping cart, Esprix strides determinedly toward the bagged onions.
Buy a Lovegety.
Dopey Dave, huh?
I’ve stopped cacking myself at the very idea that the AGPS style manual is logical. It’s many things but logical it ain’t. And I doubt Canada uses the same or similar. Just finished editing a book for the NZ market and there were enough style issues there that were different to Australia that it wasn’t funny.
And I’m gonna have to ask you for a cite. In the fifth and current edition, there’s diddly squat about using asterixes as emphasis in plain text communication. I can only find two sections which deal with asterixes – 9.6 to 9.7 and 14.34.
I’d put the full point after the asterix just because of the italics and bold style I normally follow but I wouldn’t bitch if anyone does it differently. Unless it were the name of a publication and then I would get anal about whether or not the comma or full point is italicised or bold.
Esprix, I don’t have any ideas.