For up-to-date grammar (American style anyway) I use the Associated Press Stylebook, the Chicago Manual of Style for particularly vexing questions. However, Yahoo has an excellent style guide for writing on the Internet that is also different from the aforementioned guides. TO me it comes down to how much you value readability -- I value it a lot, being someone eking out a living as a writer, publicist, journalist, etc. -- how much effort you're willing to put into proofreading and ultimately how much you respect your reader's right to expect reasonably intelligible prose from you the writer. Also of primary consideration of course - how much are you being paid to produce said writing...As Elmore Leonard said, "Anybody who writes and doesn't get paid for it is a fool" or something like that. Say I, as I write away for nothing here...
Doug Hovelson [email protected] Minneapolis > To: [email protected] > From: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Is there a way to do this... > Date: Sat, 26 May 2012 17:44:59 -0700 > > On 05/25/2012 04:03 AM, Alec McAllister wrote: > > Fowler tackles this in the "Stops" section. > > > > He mentions two schools of thought, which he calls the conventional > > and the logical, with the latter punctuating according to sense, i.e. > > putting the stops outside the inverted commas except when they > > actually form part of the quotation. > > > > The former appears to be more common in the USA and the latter in the > > UK, although neither has ever been completely uniform in either > > place. > > > > I was taught to punctuate according to sense during my education in > > UK schools, during my Degree in English, during my training as an > > English teacher and throughout my career as a teacher in the UK ... > > so it has probably been completely superseded by whatever haphazard > > punctuation (or lack of it) happens to be current on this week's most > > fashionable chat-site. :-( > > > > Alec McAllister Leeds, UK > > OK, you win. :-) > > ... > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] >
