ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

From ahem wikipedia manual of style, yes ok I know, but they speak the truth here:

When punctuating quoted passages, include the punctuation mark inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation mark is part of the quotation ("logical" quotations). When using "scare quotes", the comma or period always goes outside.

But I am (1) not a sub/copy editor and (2) a Britisher. So don't listen to me. Why *would* you put the punctuation inside the quotation marks, unless they are part of the quotation to be marked?

(xpost - yay, I speak sense!)

cornhole each other, mostly.

"You do" (WTF, 2009).

Unlike the serial comma thing (which, Robyn, just make sure your quote-comma style matches your serial-comma style!), the punctuation-outside rule is one point where I'm willing to admit that the UK style -- while not typographically pleasant -- is probably more logical in terms of meaning. I'm often copyediting and want to suggest a replacement phrase, and I'll write something US-style, like, I dunno...

use "bonus," to avoid repetition

...and then be slightly afraid whoever takes up the comment might interpret the comma as part of my suggested change. (Bad example, as I would just omit the comma there, but you know what I mean.)

"That's incredible!" he said.
"Are you coming with me?" she asked.

When a complete sentence is in quotes, the full stop should be inside the inverted commas: He said: “The cheese will be very tasty.”

If only part of a quotation is used, the punctuation is outside the inverted commas. He said the cheese would be “very tasty”.

When a sentence ends with a quote inside another quote, split the two sets of inverted commas with the punctuation mark. He said: “The mice claimed the cheese would be ‘very tasty’.”

According to CMOS:
My favorite The Beatles' albums are Help! Sgt. Pepper's, and Revolver.

One last citation punctuation: if you're setting the quotation in a block (i.e. when you're quoting 3+ lines), the citation doesn't have punctuation at the end. Though I'm thinking of MLA, don't know about CMOS.

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Work, 2999

If only part of a quotation is used, the punctuation is outside the inverted commas. He said the cheese would be “very tasty”.

This is actually just UK style pretending to be complicated. The top one goes inside quotes because the mark is native to the quote itself. The bottom one doesn't, because it's not.

xpost

Yes, but your earlier table said "UK=outside the quotes" which is wrong.

One thing that does bother me, though: a foreign word that's not in Webster's is supposed to be italicized, but if you're speaking of it in the plural, the "s" has to be in roman, which just looks messy to me. For instance:

"I ordered a Thai iced coffee and two pad kee maos."

It makes sense to do it this way, since pad kee maos is presumably not the way that the Thai language pluralizes this dish -- in other words, the "s" is functioning as an English plural, even if the rest of the word is in Thai. But still, eek.

Her favorite songs are “Hello Dolly!” “Chicago” and “Come with Me.”

As for the "Hello Dolly!" example, yeah, that's tricky.

No, stet, it's just the simple way of putting it. The reason UK style does this --

He said: “The cheese will be very tasty.”

-- isn't because of some kind of "the mark goes inside the quotes" style, it's because the full stop is actually functionally part of the quote. (The main thing style is dictating there is that you don't put a whole extra period on the outside, as well.)

So, yeah, UK goes outside. The above isn't some big exception to that, it's just an instance where the quote happens to come with its own punctuation.

What's more, we do things like
"i really like cheese," barry said

(Stet this is a minor and meaningless point but I think the arcane simplification I'm working with is that you'd no more move the period outside the quotes than you would move the quote outside the quotes, because the period is part of what you're quoting to begin with. We're verging on total obscurity here, though, so it's not really important to hash out.)

"i really like cheese," barry said

The comma goes there because it's a substitute for the full stop which would be there if barry said were not. I reckon.

<i>lol @ Kruk: "If he pitches like he did tonight in the playoffs, he'll be in-valuable!"
Ravech: "You mean as in not valuable."
Kruk: "Yeah!"

-- The Bearnaise-Stain Bears (crump...), September 27th, 2006 9:48 PM. (Rock Hardy) (later)

It's easy to laugh at Kruk here, but I felt a little bad for the professional meathead who doesn't know there are prefixes that mean one thing or the opposite, depending. "In-" as "very" (invaluable) vs. "In-" as "not at all" (indefensible). Oh well, I think I'll just lol @ him anyway.

Dusty Bottoms: What does that mean, in-famous?

Ned Nederlander: Oh, Dusty. In-famous is when you're MORE than famous. This man El Guapo, he's not just famous, he's IN-famous.

Lucky Day: 100,000 pesos to perform with this El Guapo, who's probably the biggest actor to come out of Mexico!

Dusty Bottoms: Wow, in-famous? In-famous?

Main Entry: in-
1 : in : within : into : toward : on
2 : 1en-

Main Entry: en-
1 : put into or onto : cover with : go into or onto -- in verbs formed from nouns

Neu! Britney Spears, Smoosh and Edith Piaf.

Neu!, Britney Spears, Smoosh and Edith Piaf.

also to avoid confusion with nu britney spears.

(also, at first i thought neu! britney might be kind of awesome but then i realized it really would not)

This is my first foray onto this thread, so be kind.

I keep getting sentences like this at work:

Although much of the NOC's plans are devoted to oil, ...

And the count/non-count usage of much/many is troubling me. Obviously it's grammatically wrong, because the NOC's plans are plural, so we shouldn't use much. However,it would be misleading to use many, because they don't have a bunch of different plans, some of which are devoted to oil. Something like

Although much of the content of the NOC's plans is devoted to oil, ...

would be correct, it sounds terrible. Any ideas? Or just let it slide?

ps Pity me having to sub reports about the Libyan oil industry. Sigh.

I must edit my own posts on this thread of all threads!