# Punctuation rules have changed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 10, 2007, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614 "2007-02-10T13:51:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2007, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/41 "2007-02-11T23:28:12Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] **Brian** , I owe you an apology. That post was intemperate and out of line. In my defense, may I say that I _mistook it for_ the comment that nearly always occurs in threads on punctuation re the serial comma question, which is to say that the Doper making them is insistent that _the only proper way ever_ is [with/without] the serial comma, as evinced by his stylebook du jour, which oughta be enuf proof for anybody, huh? Hence I _leaned over backwards_ to acknowledge that both sides have a body of evidence on their side. Now that you’ve said you were just putting in your contribution, I feel stupid. But I misread it as the latest Bull (_De Comma Seriale_) from the pontificators, and overreacted. Sorry!! :o [/QUOTE] Not a problem, Mr. **Carp**. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2007, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/42 "2007-02-11T23:49:29Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] _Anno domini_, “in the year of the Lord” ("_Our_ Lord, i.e., Jesus, is understood, but not a part of the actual abbreviated phrase.) _Anno_, ablative or dative of _annus_, year (I’ve always understood it to be ablative, but heard from an unreliable source that it’s one of those idiomatic Latin dative usages that you learn individually or not at all.) plus _domini_, genitive of _dominus_, Lord. [/QUOTE] Er, that’s an ablative - where did you hear it was dative? The ablative and dative of second declension have (generally) the same form, of course, but the ablative is used for ‘time when’ or ‘time within which’. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/43 "2007-02-12T00:19:09Z")
I thought this thread was going to be about idiots who think that the modern way to emphasize something is to put it in quotes. :mad: :mad: :mad: ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/44 "2007-02-12T00:29:03Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] Attention, world: **If you’re writing for a newspaper or magazine that follows the AP Stylebook, avoid the serial comma.** On the other hand, unless you’re the child of Ayn Rand’s Virgin Birth miracle, use the damn thing elsewhere unless your editor, teacher, or other source of style mandate says not to. [/QUOTE] Two cents worth: I have found that using the serial comma is a helpful default. One can rarely get into trouble using it, while defaulting to its omission can lead to problems. Some in which you’ll have to use the serial comma in an exception. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/45 "2007-02-12T00:46:57Z")
[QUOTE=freckafree] That is correct, but some of these things are like cutting the shank off the ham because that’s what grandma did. They persist, but no one knows the reason why they were done in the first place. Good to know the two-space rule is no longer being taught. [/QUOTE] Off topic, but too good a story to pass up, in regard to “fossil customs” that have outlived their original purpose. There was a story in one of the Episcopal Church magazines a few years back about a personable young priest called by a large, wealthy parish to be their new rector (=pastor) after the retirement of their longtime and beloved former rector. After his first Sunday Eucharist, he was taken to one side by the Senior Warden and given an earful. “I don’t know where you learned to celebrate the Eucharist, but Fr. Longtimer always touched the cup reverently to the [polished-metal] cross above the altar after the Elevation before administering communion. We expected that you’d do things reverently and without innovations!” The new priest, of course, said that he would do precisely that from then on, but was left wondering: this was a bit of ceremony he had never run into before. A few weeks later, he had occasion to call on his predecessor at his retirement home. And he mentioned the touching chalice to cross incident, and asked if he’d missed something in seminary. The old priest laughed. “Reverent ceremony, my eye!” he said. “A month after they called me, they put in plush new carpet throughout the sanctuary. Moving around leading the service, I always built up a charge of static electricity which got transmitted to the chalice. I touched the cup to the cross to discharge the static charge, so the first communicant did not have his communion be a shocking experience!” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/46 "2007-02-12T03:29:39Z")
[QUOTE=Jinx] Regardless, the older method is easier on the reader. And, it will take forever to die out. [/QUOTE] Uh, did you read the links I posted above? “Correct” or “incorrect,” it is anything but easier on the reader. Two spaces tends to produces “rivers” of distracting white space throughout the text. This effect is magnified if you justify your text. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/47 "2007-02-12T03:35:42Z")
[QUOTE=robby] Uh, did you read the links I posted above? “Correct” or “incorrect,” it is anything but easier on the reader. Two spaces tends to produces “rivers” of distracting white space throughout the text. This effect is magnified if you justify your text. [/QUOTE] Honestly, who justifies their text though? ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/48 "2007-02-12T04:37:46Z")
> [@](#): > > …it is anything but easier on the reader. I’m a reader and I find it easier. I’ve never noticed these rivers of white space. I find that I’ll leave a little extra space between sentences when writing by hand, without even thinking about it. It helps make a page of text look more like strings of sentences and less like a crossword puzzle. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/49 "2007-02-12T06:01:14Z")
[QUOTE=Raguleader] Honestly, who justifies their text though? [/QUOTE] Every letter and report produced in my company is justified. I’ve gotten so used to it that seeing an unjustified letter looks strange to me. Using two spaces between sentences really screws up the justification process. You often end up with huge spaces between sentences. I don’t understand why everyone is so resistant to using only one space between sentences. If you look in any professionally produced typeset publication (i.e. books and magazines) you will see that this is the case. Word processors have been around for over 25 years now, people! Stop using antiquated rules! ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/50 "2007-02-12T06:59:21Z")
I was exposed to typing class and Strunk and White’s _Elements of Style_ in 1967, so I acquired a few soon-to-be-obsolete grammar habits. The dreaded serial (killer) commas were said to be in flux at the time. Drs. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme vs. Drs. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. A few years before that, I was influenced (and nearly seduced,) by a teacher who had taken a radical linguistics course. Commas, she said, were overrated. Some people said they represented pauses. If the speaker had hiccups, you’d wear out your comma key. Her theory said that commas should be avoided unless your meaning would be misunderstood by their omission. Two spaces after a period was absolute in 1967. Now, some software corrects to one space. I have adapted. If a girl missed a period, she usually had to miss some school in those days. ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/51 "2007-02-12T07:45:11Z")
[QUOTE=Keeve] I thought this thread was going to be about idiots who think that the modern way to emphasize something is to put it in quotes. [/QUOTE] That’s modern? I’ve seen it on handpainted roadside signs in front of farmers’ markets my entire life. I always assumed it was archaic, not modern. (For the record, I don’t like it either.) ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/52 "2007-02-12T08:11:49Z")
If I’ve learned one thing in my [brief time on this board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=406357), it’s that the premise of the OP is flawed. Who changes these grammar rules for the English language? Who has that right? Certainly not the AP, the Chicago Manual, the MLA, or Professors Strunk and White. They are all authorities, and people will appeal to them, but none of them gets to decide what is right. **I hereby propose an _Academie Anglais_. It shall be run by consensus of SDMB participants, and all grammar/punctuation rules therby decided shall be set in stone. It is the only way we can keep English a civil, consistant language.** In other news, I feel I must add my $.02 to the discussion of the two-spaces-after-each-period rule. God forbid that computer nerds should decide the evolution of our language, but the folks behind \*\*MS Word \*\* include the option to switch on that rule. I always keep it switched on, and it reminds me when I haven’t included two spaces. (I like two spaces after my periods. So sue me.) ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/53 "2007-02-12T15:00:47Z")
[QUOTE=Randy Seltzer] (I like two spaces after my periods. So sue me.) [/QUOTE] You’ll be hearing from my lawyer. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/54 "2007-02-12T18:54:43Z")
[QUOTE=stuyguy] Following through on Quiddity’s post about apostrophes, here is a practice that seems to be evolving. When I was a kid, the rule was that nouns ending in the letters _s_ and _x_ were made possessive with the addition of just an apostrophe (for example: James’ hat). More and more I’m seeing text that goes the full apostrophe+s route (as in, James’s hat). [/QUOTE] But can anyone offer a cite that shows that James’s would be correct? (in US usage) You see a lot more plural’s marked with incorrect apostrophe’s too, but that doesn’t mean that language is evolving to that - just that teaching grammar seems more haphazard these days. ---
**Author:** ![AHoosierMama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@AHoosierMama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHoosierMama)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/55 "2007-02-12T21:05:48Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] Just pound the use of apostrophes and contractions into their pointy little heads 😃 [/QUOTE] Does a smiley count as punctuation 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/56 "2007-02-12T22:46:27Z")
[QUOTE=robby] I don’t understand why everyone is so resistant to using only one space between sentences. If you look in any professionally produced typeset publication (i.e. books and magazines) you will see that this is the case. Word processors have been around for over 25 years now, people! Stop using antiquated rules! [/QUOTE] For me it’s got nothing to do with intentional resistance—_I had no idea the two space convention had even changed until I read this thread_! Not to mention the fact that it’s so deeply ingrained in how I type, that it would take twice as long for me to finish a document if I had to consciously try to make my hands not type, ‘period space space’ at the end of a sentence. And since I’m not making _you_ do it that way, and I don’t work in your office, I don’t understand why you care whether I put one space or two between each sentence. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/57 "2007-02-12T23:56:38Z")
[QUOTE=elfkin477] But can anyone offer a cite that shows that James’s would be correct? (in US usage) You see a lot more plural’s marked with incorrect apostrophe’s too, but that doesn’t mean that language is evolving to that - just that teaching grammar seems more haphazard these days. [/QUOTE] Sure, the Chicago Manual of Style. [Cite.](http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/PossessivesandAttributives/PossessivesandAttributives10.html) Also, Strunk & White. AP Style, however, advocates leaving off the possessive “s” in cases like “James’s” and “Burns’s.” ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/58 "2007-02-13T03:40:24Z")
[QUOTE=robby] Uh, did you read the links I posted above? “Correct” or “incorrect,” it is anything but easier on the reader. Two spaces tends to produces “rivers” of distracting white space throughout the text. This effect is magnified if you justify your text. [/QUOTE] I, too, am a reader. A reader of a lot of things, both justified and not (in all senses of the word! 😃 ). I have never noticed “rivers” of distracting space. I actually prefer it when the extra space is there, especially with smaller type, so that I know for certain I’m not reading a comma as a period, or vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/59 "2007-02-13T03:46:44Z")
In all seriousness, we are in the process of witnessing a not-so-slow degeneration of the concept of English by prescriptive rule. All the younger generation communicate through IM’s and text messages, and they disdain and eschew punctuation and grammar rules by the boatload in their quest for novel and/or compact ways to express themselves. As they become our writers and readers, we can be certain that the carefully built-up “rules” we have learned so carefully (usually the result of our teachers pounding them into us) will go by the wayside, offal tossed away as useless. Since these younger members of our society seem to be able to communicate quite handily without worrying about “serial commas” or “two spaces after the period,” I doubt the rules will be missed that much, except by the few who will long for the days when written English was vibrant and clear. \ ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614/60 "2007-02-13T03:53:56Z")
Yes indeed, the young spoil everything, not listening to the wisdom of their elders. :rolleyes: Using textspeak and leetspeak will not get you far in formal writing, it is merely convenient for informal communication. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punctuation-rules-have-changed/391614.md?page=4)