Right, like spelling and past-tenses, for instance?
I thinked abowt that for a wile, but rearlizd that its much easier to keep things as thay r.
Everton, we don’t double up either (nor do I think we should). I was responding to the notion that punctuation belongs inside the quotation marks only as the sentence within the quotes requires said punctuation on its own. The sentence “I like red wine,” divorced from a quotation and attribution, requires an end mark, a period.
That being the case, there should be a period within the quotes, regardless of what follows, if I’m understanding the logic of the “strict quoting convention” mentioned previously in the thread (perhaps I’m misunderstanding it).
Following that logic to its conclusion, then everything inside the quotes, including the punctuation, is merely another grammar unit within the sentence. The larger sentence still needs its own punctuation. That’s why many in this thread would place a comma outside the quotation marks, because the sentence (not the quotation itself) requires it.
So, if one’s argument is that only a logically consistent rule is acceptable, I would still say that my example is the natural conclusion:
"I like red wine.", said Bill.
Janet replied, "Doesn't everyone?".
If someone wants logical consistency in his punctuation, there it is. (And I still don’t like it better than the “illogical” method.)
In my mind, the strongest argument for abandoning this convention is the “age of computer” argument made earlier. This sentence…
Please type “Back up file,” insert the disk, and hit enter.
…creates an ambiguity that is not acceptable in the literal world of computers.
Sorry for the long post, but I love discussions like this.
The point is that we don’t have a requirement on either side of the Atlantic to follow the logic to absurd degrees. The Chicago Manual of Style cited earlier points out that the application of the convention is flexible, with the intention to avoid ambiguity.
If we agree that we shouldn’t be duplicating punctuation within a sentence, then we have to make a decision about which punctuation mark to retain, and the force behind that decision (in Britain and the USA) is to avoid confusion. For example, I would retain a question mark, an exclamaition mark or any mark that was an essential part of the quoted words, but I don’t consider the period (or full stop as we call it) to be an essential part of “I like wine”, so that’s why I would omit it.
The example you quoted of instructions in an installation guide is a good one, but the ambiguity wouldn’t occur with British usage because our convention would be to leave the first comma outside the quotes. I also suspect it’s a good example of where the CMoS would recommend a variation from the usual American usage.
Again, I’ll point out that I am not advocating the convention used in my examples. I was just pointing out that if “logical consistency” is the goal, it’s lost at the start with issues of grammar and punctuation. My examples are consistent in the logic applied, but they suck in terms of their readability. That’s not a trivial issue with language.
No, we don’t have a requirement on either side of the Atlantic to follow the logic to absurd degrees. As a matter of fact, there isn’t a requirement for any rule of punctuation to have its own internal logic; they often exist only because they have somehow become the accepted convention. Why is a question mark at the end of the sentence more “logical” than having it at the start? I think it makes more sense to begin rather than end sentences with a question mark. That way, the reader knows at the start the context of the sentence. But if I follow that convention, my writing will be confusing because no one else here adheres to this “rule.”
Punctuation is much more about orthodoxy than logic, and we shouldn’t pretend there’s a scientific precision to it (or that there should be one).
That’s another way of saying that the American convention is absolutely fine as well. Place the comma outside the quotes for computer situations only, in the same way it’s acceptable to split an infinitive or end a sentence with a preposition in situations where the sentence would be more awkward in following the rule. Why isn’t that a flexible, reasonable convention? If anyone doesn’t like the American rule, that’s OK, but the argument that it’s “illogical” is weak, I think.
Yes, you’re right, Bob - ease of understanding is the goal, not logical consistency.
I also agree with your comment about the split infinitive (which has a very dubious justification, and which has been rubbished on these boards before). Of course some languages use questions marks at both end of sentences, but I don’t expect that to catch on with us very soon. In technical documents I write, I generally use a typographical convention such as a special font for text that must be input precisiely as shown, but that’s not convenient for all purposes is it?
FTR, no usage 'spert has upheld the split infinitive rule, to my knowledge, for quite some time.
In the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition, 2000, it’s still a grammatical issue:
The rest of their write-up makes it clear they lean toward the “this is kind of a silly rule” side of the argument, but it’s likewise clear that neither they nor the sacred “Usage Panel” dismiss it as no longer having any weight at all.
Oxford Dictionary’s site expresses a similar sentiment: