Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:03:30 -0500 From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> To: Tom Rhodes <trhodes@FreeBSD.org>, Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> Cc: cvs-all@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/bin/cp cp.1 Message-ID: <p0621022abe4414729259@[128.113.24.47]> In-Reply-To: <20050224182840.5740b751@mobile.pittgoth.com> References: <200502240006.j1O06MDs099490@repoman.freebsd.org> <20050225042045.L99633@delplex.bde.org> <20050224182840.5740b751@mobile.pittgoth.com>
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At 6:28 PM -0500 2/24/05, Tom Rhodes wrote: >On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 05:37:20 +1100 (EST) >Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> wrote: >> > > I think you mean ones ending in "/". Ones ending in "/." are > > similarly mishandled, but this is not noted. The strange > > English rule for putting "." in quotes is very confusing here. > > I don't know the exact rule. > >In my case, I was using the period to end the sentence, not to >cover the "." entry in the file system. > >With regards to English, I was always taught that you end a sentence >with punctuation in quotes; however, this rule may be broken when >confusion may occur. This seems to be one of those cases and I >double checked with my friend, Matt, who teaches college >English courses. It wasn't an "english rule", it was a "typesetters rule". And apparently it's more stupidly done in the US than other english- speaking countries. See: http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/quotation.htm for instance. I hate the rule. I've had more than one argument with documentation staff who moved periods or commas inside of quotes (among other changes), to make it "better english". And at the same time they've taken my carefully-worded instructions and made them *WRONG*. And of course, *they* don't get the phone calls when some user has problems due to typing in the wrong information... The rule hangs on because everyone now thinks "it looks right" to pull the punctuation into the quote. If we just stopped doing that, then it would "look right" to leave the punctuation where it belongs. </soapbox> -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu
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