(no subject)

[outlier_lynn]

There are two [thanks, Kevin] punctuation issues that I have a problem with. Both are purely because of how I was taught all those years ago in high school.

Now I find that one of them has a name. It is the Oxford Comma. That is the one that comes before the "and" in a list. For instance: I like lemon, anise, and sugar. I was taught to NOT use the Oxford Comma. I broke myself of the habit 40 years ago.

The debate over the use of the Oxford Comma has swung toward it. I'm partial to it, so I'm retraining to use it. This will drive some people nuts.

The other issue has come to new light, too. It concerns the placement of sentence ending punctuation when the sentence ends with a quote or parenthetical. Is that pesky period a part of the quote or not? But it looks damn odd to me to see this construct: ... can't make him drink".
That lonely period outside the quote mark just seems "wrong". But it is common, especially on the internet.

As it turns out, it's a difference between American English and everyone else's English. The Brits have no trouble putting that period inside or outside based on it's relationship to the quote or to the parenthetical expression. Only the Americans seem dead set on putting the "little" punctuation inside the quotes.

I like my language with less ambiguity, so I'm going to train myself to the British style.

This, too, will irritate many.

if you find a book titled, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves", by Lynne Truss, get it. It's a good read. It's a fun read. It's a book about punctuation. No, really. It's a fun read.

Love.

Comments

[aeire.livejournal.com]

Weird - I was trained when in school that there wasn't a comma between that last list item and the word and. So for me it would be lemon, anise and sugar. Seeing a comma there looks odd to me. As for the quotations, I always have a problem with those, neither way looks particularly correct over the other but I've always put the end punctuation inside the quotations instead of outside - oddly enough, we were taught to put it outside the quotations, like you did. Hehehe.

[cikevin.livejournal.com]

Should I make fun of your "tow punctuation issues" (sic)? ;)

I'm a huge fan of the Oxford Comma. That's what I was taught was correct, so I'm fine with its increasing popularity.

Computer science, of all things, got me to get more comfortable with putting punctuation outside quotes. It got me thinking that the part inside the quotes really is the information, and punctuation that isn't part of the original quote should therefore be outside.

[scixual.livejournal.com]

That was my reasoning as well -- until the AP Styleguide forced my journalistic writing to conform to the American Way. I am more-or-less reverted back to "logical" punctuation these days.

[scixual.livejournal.com]

I learned both of those things from that book as well -- and it was with a surprising amount of relief that I learned that some of the things I was unsure of were different according to country of origin.

Her newest book seems like a diatribe against "rudeness", and seems far less useful...

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

have used both the oxford comma and punctuation outside of quotation marks forever and a day, because they both make more sense to me than the alternatives (exception: if the punctuation belongs to the quote itself). i occasionally end up with double punctuation, though i try to rewrite if that happens. or i just leave it. i most often run into this because i use too many parentheticals.

irritates many? does it? who gives a fuck? somebody who wants to argue about it can suck my semicolon. unless i am writing for publication and you're my editor, random opinion on these matters is just hot air to me. :)

[mayaknife.livejournal.com]

My rule for the Oxford Comma is to leave it out if all the items in the list are single words but to put it in if the items contain multiple words.