Late night grammar session

"Leadbull" (leadbull911) 08/28/2013 at 00:08 • Filed to: Grammarlopnik

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It's 'anyway', not 'anyways'.

D > Leadbull 08/28/2013 at 00:11

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punctuation before quotes plz

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > Leadbull 08/28/2013 at 00:11

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Preach on, brother! I generally view the use of "anyway" to segue out of a line of thought as fairly lazy, but get it right if you're going to use it.

Leadbull > D 08/28/2013 at 00:13

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Not if you do it the British way and use apostrophe quotes. If you use actual quotations, then yes.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > D 08/28/2013 at 00:18

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This is a matter of great debate.

In the US, the accepted treatment is to always include whatever punctuation ends a sentence. This is blatantly wrong, especially when you get into a case such as asking a question that ends with a quote that itself isn't a question.

The treatment in the UK is to use a logic based approach: if what you're quoting, such as a sentence of speech, includes punctuation, then you include the punctuation. But if it what you're quoting doesn't have punctuation inherent to its existence, then the punctuation goes outside the quotation.

The English have this absolutely correct. I've yet to hear a more convincing argument in favor of the US treatment other than it's just the accepted practice.

CB > Leadbull 08/28/2013 at 00:19

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So you mean the song isn't 'Anyways You Want It'? That explains a lot.

Leadbull > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 08/28/2013 at 00:26

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The question mark thing always confused me in school. I was taught in the U.S. to put Question marks outside if they weren't part of the quote, but that was the only exception. Basically everything else went inside. Weird.

Thank you, Brits, for not being dumb!

Foxtrotzed - Internet Sensation of 2010 > Leadbull 08/28/2013 at 00:27

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**Nervously checks recent post** phew

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > Leadbull 08/28/2013 at 00:31

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Seriously. Sometimes they do some seriously backwards shit, but I generally defer to their grammatical treatments, if not their spellings.

J. Walter Weatherman > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 08/28/2013 at 00:34

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Yes, this. If my degree in Linguistics has taught me anything, it is that the traditional grammar rules we are taught in grade school are are many times arbitrary and needless (and in some cases, an outright hindrance to clarity), and that if you have a good reason to do so, you shouldn't hesitate to flout them. Putting punctuation outside of quotes is one of the rules that I intentionally flout on a regular basis.