Random notes on English usage inspired by Wiki.Commas and Quotation marksI'm generally picky about usage, grammar, spelling, and punctuation when I write. On most such matters, I defer to competent authorities like American Heritage Dictionary and Chicago Manual of Style. But there is one point on which I think the latter authority should be ignored: commas inside quotation marks. The "official" American style is to always place a comma or period inside a closing quotation mark that precedes it, regardless of whether the comma or period is part of the quote or part of the surrounding sentence. British newspapers generally place it where it belongs; inside if it is part of the quote, outside otherwise. The American style is stupid and wrong, and needs to be changed. Some prominent writers are already starting to do so: computer magazines, especially, prefer the logical British style. I strongly recommend that Wikipedia be a leader here, and not a follower. To hell with CMS--do it right, and put the commas where they belong. The original reason for the American style has been lost in obscurity (the most common claim is that it was to prevent small marks from breaking off of lead type); since there is no longer any legitimate reason for the practice, there is no reason to slavishly follow an outdated style that leads to confusion and ugly text. Put commas where they logically belong--it's easy, it's clear, it's right. :I second this wholeheartedly. Why not just put it in Wikipedia policy and see what happens? --AxelBoldt :Yep. Silly, inaccurate custom. --loh :I think attempts to evaluate totally arbitrary customs, and this is an example, are pretty much pointless. As long as it's generally practiced, and as long as the British convention looks weird (as it certainly does to me), I'm going to continue to write it the right way. It's the best way to avoid jarring the reader and looking pretentious. --LMS :But it's the American convention that is jarring and looks weird and pretentious. --Zundark :Evaluating arbitrary customs is only pointless if the alternatives are symmetric, e.g. driving on the right side of the road vs. left. In our case however, the American custom is illogical, imprecise and confusing to non-native speakers. The British custom has the only disadvantage of "looking weird" to Americans; I don't think it confuses them or distorts a sentence's meaning. The alternatives are not symmetric. --AxelBoldt :Yes, I agree. The British shold learn to drive on the right. --MichaelTinkler Linguistic fluff"Very"I rarely use the word "very", because it takes up space and provides little information. For example, if that sentence had said "...very little information.", what would it express that wasn't already expressed as it is? It is also a way to sneak in personal bias and value judgment: to say that something is "very large", for example, is to say that it is larger, in the author's opinion, than what he would expect the reader to think of as merely "large". "Of course"The Wikipedia policy page contains this paragraph:
While I generally agree, I think one particular instance in which I used the phrase (on the computer character page) works well:
In this case, just using "and" would imply that the two phrases thus joined are equal or parallel when they are not. The first is a special use by a limited set of people, and the last is the common everyday use. The "of course" emphasizes this and adds clarity I think. "Aleph has special use X, and use Y (which is the ordinary use I assume you already know about)". You might argue that the sentence could be reworded. First, I stand by the use of passive voice here because the real subject of the sentence is the letter--a thing being used by two users, not the users. Rewording to express the non-parallel nature of the joined clause and still be in passive voice is awkward and puts the letter in the middle: "In addition to its normal use in Hebrew text, the letter "Aleph" is used by mathematicians..." I think the way the sentence is written, "of course" and all, is best. Strunk and White have a good section on this sort of linguistic fluff. Well worth reading; I expect you have already! --drj |
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This discussion was moved out of Wikipedia to Lee's personal Wiki, on the page [Notes on writing style]. |
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