From the companion volume to PBS television's *Do You Speak American*
Raymond S. Wise
network PBS ("Public Broadcasting System," a government-owned network) and
will have Robert McNeil discussing the various dialects of American English.
The other day I took a look at the companion volume to the series: "*Do You
Speak American?: A Companion to the PBS Television Series* by Robert MacNeil
and William Cran. Publisher: Nan A. Talese: Doubleday, copyright 2005.
The subject discussed in the first chapter, "The Language Wars," is
prescriptivism versus descriptivism. John Simon appears as an advocate of
the first (and others are cited) and Geoffrey K. Pullum and Jesse Sheidlower
as advocates of the second.
For example, Sheidlower discusses a charge Simon makes against the editors
of current dictionaries:
[quote]
Sheidlower denies Simon's charge that they are regarding as law whatever
ordinary people say. "Absolutely untrue," he says. In fact, it's still the
case that what the _educated_ say is the law, because a language feature
used only by the uneducated would always be described as just that." What
Sheidlower means is that his dictionary makes the distinction between what
is accepted in correct usage and what is still seen as "slang" or
"informal."
[end quote]
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Roland Hutchinson
> PBS ("Public Broadcasting System," a government-owned network)
Oy!
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
raymond o'hara
"Raymond S. Wise" <mplsra...@gbronline.com> wrote in message
news:EY-dnfXqm4o...@gbronline.com...
> *Do You Speak American* is a program which will appear on the US
> television
> network PBS ("Public Broadcasting System," a government-owned network)
Fom the PBS website.
PBS, headquartered in Alexandria Va., is a PRIVATE, non-profit, media
enterprise owned and operated by the nations 349 public television stations.
The Government does not own the PBS.
Areff
> Raymond S. Wise wrote:
>
>> PBS ("Public Broadcasting System," a government-owned network)
>
> Oy!
Seconded. PBS is, in its own words, "a private, non-profit media
enterprise owned and operated by the nation's 349 public television
stations". Public broadcasting is "public" in the "noncommercial and
concerned with the supposed public interest" sense.
Actually, PBS can be said to be a mix of state and nonstate, in that it
includes television stations that are owned by some state entity. However,
I would assume that most PBS stations are not state-owned.
Based on information at the PBS website, it would seem that less than half
of funding for public television (and no more than about 40%) is from
state entities.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a quango.
--
Steny '08!
Raymond S. Wise
> Raymond S. Wise wrote:
>
>> PBS ("Public Broadcasting System," a government-owned network)
>
> Oy!
"Public Broadcasting *Service.* " I tried to find out if it had ever been
named the "Public Broadcasting System," but was unable to do so. It
certainly is referred to as such often enough on the Internet.
Raymond S. Wise
Interesting. I took Roland Hutchinson's "Oy!" to be a comment on my having
used "Public Broadcasting System" instead of "Public Broadcasting Service."
Roland Hutchinson
> raymond o'hara wrote:
>> The Government does not own the PBS.
> Interesting. I took Roland Hutchinson's "Oy!" to be a comment on my having
> used "Public Broadcasting System" instead of "Public Broadcasting
> Service."
No, I confess that that particular gnat escaped my strainer. As others
correctly surmised, I was oying the camel of calling PBS "government-
owned".
Ben Zimmer
>
> *Do You Speak American* is a program which will appear on the US
> television network PBS ("Public Broadcasting System," a
> government-owned network) and will have Robert McNeil discussing the
> various dialects of American English.
> The other day I took a look at the companion volume to the series:
> "*Do You Speak American?: A Companion to the PBS Television Series* by
> Robert MacNeil and William Cran. Publisher: Nan A. Talese: Doubleday,
> copyright 2005.
>
> The subject discussed in the first chapter, "The Language Wars," is
> prescriptivism versus descriptivism. John Simon appears as an advocate
> of the first (and others are cited) and Geoffrey K. Pullum and Jesse
> Sheidlower as advocates of the second.
"Do You Speak American?" premieres on PBS this Wednesday, Jan. 5 (check
your local listings). A good chance to hear from Messrs. Sheidlower,
Labov, et al. (I'm also looking forward to hearing what Amy Heckerling,
director of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Clueless", has to say.)
More here: <http://www.pbs.org/previews/speak_american/>.
don groves
Wise at mplsra...@gbronline.com hath writ:
> raymond o'hara wrote:
> > "Raymond S. Wise" <mplsra...@gbronline.com> wrote in message
> > news:EY-dnfXqm4o...@gbronline.com...
> >> *Do You Speak American* is a program which will appear on the US
> >> television
> >> network PBS ("Public Broadcasting System," a government-owned
> >> network)
> >
> >
> >
> > Fom the PBS website.
> > PBS, headquartered in Alexandria Va., is a PRIVATE, non-profit, media
> > enterprise owned and operated by the nations 349 public television
> > stations.
> >
> > The Government does not own the PBS.
>
>
> Interesting. I took Roland Hutchinson's "Oy!" to be a comment on my having
> used "Public Broadcasting System" instead of "Public Broadcasting Service."
Since the others missed it, I'll Oy! the comma inside the ending
quote mark. This has happened here a couple of times recently.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
Raymond S. Wise
You mean the commas in the following? "('Public Broadcasting System,' a
government-owned network)" and "The subject discussed in the first chapter,
'The Language Wars,' is prescriptivism versus descriptivism." Those
represent standard American punctuation practice, no more "Oy!"able than is
"in hospital" when used by a speaker of British English.
A punctuation error which I did make was the quotation mark preceding the
title of the book, since the name of the book is set off with asterisks
rather than, as in the case of the chapter title, quotation marks.
(The use of asterisks rather than either slashes or underscores is
deliberate on my part: Using underscores complicates finding past material
in Google Groups archive and slashes are used in these groups for
pronunciations represented in ASCII IPA.)
Harvey Van Sickle
Pondial differences in standard styles aren't legitimately oy-able.
--
Cheers, Harvey
Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years;
Southern England for the past 22 years.
(for e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van)
Charles Riggs
wrote:
I'd Oy! "comma", if I oyed.
--
Charles Riggs
They are no accented letters in my email address
raymond o'hara
"Raymond S. Wise" > You mean the commas in the following? "('Public
> government-owned network)" and "The subject discussed in the first
> chapter,
> 'The Language Wars,' is prescriptivism versus descriptivism." Those
> represent standard American punctuation practice, no more "Oy!"able than
> is
> "in hospital" when used by a speaker of British English.
" In hospital "sounds strange to American ears but we say "in jail" and "in
prison".
While I haven't yet gotten used to it no longer being "The" Ukraine I
always thought them having a the the was odd.
Peter Seibel
I think that's because "ukraine" means "border" or "borderlands" in
Russian. Thus "the ukraine" was "the borderlands (of Russia)". Of
course Russian doesn't have articles so the "the" isn't directly from
Russian. Anyway, as I understand it the switch from "The Ukraine" to
"Ukraine" is intended to signify that Ukraine is its own, fully
autonomous nation now, not an appendage of, or defined in relation to
Russia. In other words, exactly the issue in the recent Ukranian
presidential election.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel pe...@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
don groves
network)_. You quoted the name of something of which the comma
is not a part. How can this be anyone's standard practice?
It's like saying, "Last night I watched "Mask," a great film"
instead of "Last night I watched "Mask", a great film."
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
Raymond S. Wise
You ask "How can this be anyone's standard practice?" That's like asking,
"How can it be anyone's standard practice to write 'favourite' for
'favorite'?" (If there were a period instead of a question mark there, it
would go inside both the single and double ending quotation marks: "He
wondered how it could be anyone's standard practice to write 'favourite' for
'favorite.'")
Donna Richoux
> I Oy!ed _PBS ("Public Broadcasting System," a government-owned
> network)_. You quoted the name of something of which the comma
> is not a part. How can this be anyone's standard practice?
>
> It's like saying, "Last night I watched "Mask," a great film"
> instead of "Last night I watched "Mask", a great film."
I keep forgetting if you're the Don in the Northwest or the Don in the
Midwest, but I know you're in the US. Here's typical style advice, in
the US:
The Guide to Grammar and Writing
http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/quotation.htm
In the United States, periods and commas go inside
quotation marks regardless of logic. ...
In the United Kingdom, Canada, and islands under the
influence of British education, punctuation around
quotation marks is more apt to follow logic. In
American style, then, you would write: My favorite
poem is Robert Frost's "Design." But in England you
would write: My favorite poem is Robert Frost's
"Design".
(That page has more about other marks and combinations.)
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Bob Cunningham
<dgr...@domain.net> said:
[...]
> I Oy!ed _PBS ("Public Broadcasting System," a
> government-owned network)_.
Sorry, you misOy!ed.
> [Someone] quoted the name of something of which
> the comma is not a part. How can this be anyone's
> standard practice?
It's ridiculous, but -- so far as I know -- it's the
standard practice specified by nearly every punctuation
guide in America.
Americans are supposed to write
The labels on the four packages were "A," "B,"
"C," and "D."
A British style that I admire and use calls for writing
"The labels on the four packages were "A", "B",
"C", and "D".
Some American punctuation guides recognize the absurdity of
punctuating the way we are supposed to, but they still
recommend that the silly comma and period placement be
adhered to.
The _Chicago Manual of Style 14th Edition_ tells us to
normally use the absurd (American) style, but it recommends
using the rational (British) style when it's necessary to be
absolutely correct about what you're quoting. As they say,
this would be true, for example, if what you're writing is
textual criticism.
They use the example (Section 5.12, page 161)
The first line of Le Beau's warning to Orlando has
long been regarded as reading "Good sir, I do in
friendship counsel you".
They say about it
In [that example], which may be imagined as
being included in a work of textual criticism,
the location of the period warns against the
incorrect assumption that the quoted line ends
with a period.
In other words, if you want to say what you mean, use the
British style. If you don't care what you say, use the
American style.
> It's like saying, "Last night I watched "Mask," a great film"
> instead of "Last night I watched "Mask", a great film."
Yes, indeed.
don groves
That may be true if you were quoting a statement, a sentance, but
you're not, you're quoting a name which has no included
punctuation. It's not the same as an alternate spelling, it's
grammatically incorrect.
Some names do have puncutation, like "Fame!, the movie. Are you
saying that _"Fame!," the movie_ is an acceptible alternative?
I say it's hogwash.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
don groves
at tr...@euronet.nl hath writ:
Thanks, Donna. I couldn't reach the page just now but I don't
care if someone was holding a gun to my head, I would never put
that particular comma inside those particular quotes. It just
doesn't make sense, even taking into account that languages don't
make any sense! In your example, there is no following clause to
be separated by the punctuation as in the OP. This makes it not
so noticable.
I'm the Northwest Don, BTW.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
Peter Seibel
> Some American punctuation guides recognize the absurdity of
> punctuating the way we are supposed to, but they still recommend
> that the silly comma and period placement be adhered to.
>
> The _Chicago Manual of Style 14th Edition_ tells us to normally use
> the absurd (American) style, but it recommends using the rational
> (British) style when it's necessary to be absolutely correct about
> what you're quoting. As they say, this would be true, for example,
> if what you're writing is textual criticism.
>
> They use the example (Section 5.12, page 161)
>
> The first line of Le Beau's warning to Orlando has long been
> regarded as reading "Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you".
>
> They say about it
>
> In [that example], which may be imagined as being included in a
> work of textual criticism, the location of the period warns
> against the incorrect assumption that the quoted line ends with
> a period.
>
> In other words, if you want to say what you mean, use the British
> style. If you don't care what you say, use the American style.
Many computer programmers also use the British style for similar
reasons as the textual critics. The New Hacker's Dictionary, 3rd ed.
gives this example:
Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd".
vs.
Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd."
Where "dd." and "dd" have different meanings to the program to which
they are commands.
don groves
Cunningham at exw...@earthlink.net hath writ:
> On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 16:25:16 -0800, don groves
> <dgr...@domain.net> said:
>
> [...]
>
> > I Oy!ed _PBS ("Public Broadcasting System," a
> > government-owned network)_.
>
> Sorry, you misOy!ed.
>
> > [Someone] quoted the name of something of which
> > the comma is not a part. How can this be anyone's
> > standard practice?
>
> It's ridiculous, but -- so far as I know -- it's the
> standard practice specified by nearly every punctuation
> guide in America.
>
> Americans are supposed to write
>
> The labels on the four packages were "A," "B,"
> "C," and "D."
>
> A British style that I admire and use calls for writing
>
> "The labels on the four packages were "A", "B",
> "C", and "D".
>
> Some American punctuation guides recognize the absurdity of
> punctuating the way we are supposed to, but they still
> recommend that the silly comma and period placement be
> adhered to.
As I said to Donna, the example of an ending period is not nearly
as screwed up as the original. The lack of an additional clause
makes it an acceptable alternative to me, especially if what's
being quoted is a complete sentence.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
Raymond S. Wise
Are you questioning whether I have correctly represented the standard
American practice or whether the standard American practice deserves to be
the standard American practice? If the first, then you should be able to
verify easily enough that I am correct. If the second, then that's a subject
which has already been much discussed in these newsgroups and has by now
become a pretty boring one. I expect to follow the American practice until a
majority of educated American writers (at the very least) change to
something else, if they ever do. (When writing in French or Esperanto, I
follow a practice which is similar to that of the British--When in Rome....)
Donna Richoux
It's fine by me if you stick to your guns, I'm not trying to convert
you. I was a bit surprised that you were completely unaware of the
traditional US policy, though. The AUE FAQ gives the usual reason,
relating to printing type.
>
> I'm the Northwest Don, BTW.
Thanks. I like being able to place people mentally around the globe and
two different Don G's confuse me. I will try picturing "groves" of trees
in the Pacific Northwest. But then again, Missouri (which I think is
where the other Don G lives) is also tree-covered... Could I interest
you in taking on another identifying name tag, a sort of "Calvin the
Bold" epithet?
--
Best - Donna Richoux
the Omrud
> Many computer programmers also use the British style for similar
> reasons as the textual critics.
Or, indeed, because they are British, which means that they never
came up against this rather strange hurdle.
--
David
=====
replace usenet with the
Robin Bignall
wrote:
>I'm the Northwest Don, BTW.
<From a future episode of 'The Godfather Reminiscences':
Sollozzo: Does your consiglieri have all those judges in her pocket,
Don Don?
Don: Dunno. Alaska.>
--
wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Hertfordshire
England
Martyn
"don groves" <dgr...@domain.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c44d3c6c...@news.individual.net...
>
> It's like saying, "Last night I watched "Mask," a great film"
> instead of "Last night I watched "Mask", a great film."
But 'Mask' wasn't a great film.
I thought it was rubbish; but then I only watched the first half.
Martyn
Peter Seibel
> pe...@javamonkey.com typed thusly:
>
>> Many computer programmers also use the British style for similar
>> reasons as the textual critics.
>
> Or, indeed, because they are British, which means that they never
> came up against this rather strange hurdle.
Indeed.
don groves
Bi...@microsoft.com hath writ:
Are you confusing "Mask" with "The Mask"? "Mask" is a marvelous
story about a disfigured teen finding the love of a blind girl.
It was Cher's (playing the teen's biker mother) greatest film
role, imho.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
don groves
I haven't had the time yet to look it up for myself, but I
question whether it's standard practice. It certainly is in a
case such as: Rhett said, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a
damn." But not in something like: When Rhett said "Frankly, my
dear", I knew what was coming next.
In the former, the period is part of the complete sentence being
quoted.
In the latter, the comma functions to set off the following
clause, not as part of the quote.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
William R Ward
> I haven't had the time yet to look it up for myself, but I
> question whether it's standard practice. It certainly is in a
> case such as: Rhett said, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a
> damn." But not in something like: When Rhett said "Frankly, my
> dear", I knew what was coming next.
>
> In the former, the period is part of the complete sentence being
> quoted.
>
> In the latter, the comma functions to set off the following
> clause, not as part of the quote.
It doesn't matter what the function of the period or comma is - it
always goes inside the quotes. It's done for esthetics - the period
or comma just looks better next to some letters. There's probably
also some reason pertaining to typesetting machines but I don't know
for sure.
Question marks, exclamation points, colons, etc. follow the standard
you prefer. Take consolation in that. :-) In situations where it
could be confusing (such as technical writing where the period or
comma might be part of a command you type to a computer), it's usually
easy to recast the sentence to remove the ambiguity.
To verify it, open any book of fiction. In just about any dialogue
you will find things like this:
"Frankly, my dear," said Rhett, "I don't give a damn."
or
"Franky, my dear, I don't give a damn," said Rhett.
This is not a Leftpondia-only standard. The Brits do the same thing.
I just confirmed it by looking at a British paperback novel.
--Bill.
--
William R Ward bi...@wards.net http://bill.wards.net
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help save the San Jose Earthquakes - http://www.soccersiliconvalley.com/
William R Ward
> A British style that I admire and use calls for writing
>
> "The labels on the four packages were "A", "B",
> "C", and "D".
The Brits use the single quote instead of double, but they follow the
same standard as Americans for the commas and periods. Whereas the
Americans would write:
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," said Rhett.
The equivalent British version would be:
'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn,' said Rhett.
not:
'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn', said Rhett.
Raymond S. Wise
I see from a reply you made to Donna that you are from the Northwest--That's
Northwest as in the Pacific Northwest of the US, yes? (I'm living in the
"upper Northwest," myself.) I have to wonder how you ever got through school
without knowing the rules. None of my teachers would ever have allowed me to
get by with a sentence such as "Last night I watched 'Mask', a great film."
William R Ward
> Many computer programmers also use the British style for similar
> reasons as the textual critics. The New Hacker's Dictionary, 3rd ed.
> gives this example:
>
> Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd".
>
> vs.
>
> Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd."
>
> Where "dd." and "dd" have different meanings to the program to which
> they are commands.
This should be rewritten to avoid the ambiguity:
Then type "dd" to delete a line from the file.
Areff
[to Don "Ah!" Groves]
> I see from a reply you made to Donna that you are from the Northwest--That's
> Northwest as in the Pacific Northwest of the US, yes?
BTW, no one calls it the "Pacific Northwest" out there. They just call it
"the Northwest", perhaps to be inclusive of those vast portions of it
that are more than a few hundred miles as the crow flies from the Pacific.
It occurs to me that no one outside of the (Pacific) Northwest calls that
region "the Northwest". It's the "Pacific Northwest". I wonder whether
the insistence on "Pacific" is some residual effect of the older usage of
"the Northwest", something which the residents of the Pacific Northwest
would be free to conveniently forget about.
I have had some experience of residing in the Northwest, and I can tell
you that the "Pacific" thing is really a misnomer. There's hardly any
consciousness among the populace of any proximity to the Pacific Ocean
except, presumably, in those small subsets of the Northwest that are
actually adjacent to the coast. By contrast, on the East Coast proximity
to the Atlantic is a culturally-defining feature of the greatest
significance.
> (I'm living in the
> "upper Northwest," myself.)
The "Old Northwest", I'd call it. Certainly Washington state extends
further northward than Mpls (ya?).
--
Steny '08!
Martin Ambuhl
> I haven't had the time yet to look it up for myself,
The amount of time it would have taken you is much less than you have
wasted on this thread.
> but I
> question whether it's standard practice.
You can question all you want, but the standard practice is, as the
_Harbace College Handbook_ has it,
"In using marks of punctuation with quoted words, phrase, or sentences,
follow the arbitrary printers' rules by placing:
"(1) The period and the comma always within the quotation marks."
> It certainly is in a
> case such as: Rhett said, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a
> damn." But not in something like: When Rhett said "Frankly, my
> dear", I knew what was coming next.
Of course you don't find it in something like your text after the colon,
because that text is incorrectly punctuated according to standard
American practice. It should have been: When Rhett said "Frankly, my
dear," I knew what was coming next.
> In the former, the period is part of the complete sentence being
> quoted.
>
> In the latter, the comma functions to set off the following
> clause, not as part of the quote.
You are wrong. Period. That you might not follow the standard practice
does not give you licence to decree that long-established standard
practice is not standard practice. Spend a little of the copious time
you spend with your computer to look up what you should have learned
before you were twelve.
Bob Cunningham
First, I guess it wouldn't hurt to say again that although I
am an American I follow British punctuation conventions to
the best of my understanding, because I think they make more
sense than do the American conventions.
On 05 Jan 2005 13:49:38 -0800, William R Ward
<bi...@wards.net> said:
[...]
> The Brits use the single quote instead of double,
We've been assured by at least one British poster in
alt.usage.english that it is not at all uncommon these days
for *some* British publishers to use double quotes the same
as we do.
> but they follow the same standard as Americans for the
> commas and periods. Whereas the Americans would write:
> "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," said Rhett.
> The equivalent British version would be:
> 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn,' said Rhett.
> not:
> 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn', said Rhett.
You've chosen a bad example. "Frankly, my dear, I don't
give a damn" is a complete sentence, so when written by
itself it would be followed by a period. Therefore, in your
example, the period is replaced by a surrogate in the form
of a comma, which -- according to Oxford University Press
rules -- goes inside the quotes. American and British
conventions punctuate your example the same, but for
different reasons.
If you change it to
"Frankly my dear, I don't", said Rhett, "give a damn."
then the second comma goes outside the quotes. The
statement doesn't have any punctuation mark after "don't".
The comma after the quote is introductory to the
attribution.
My support for what I'm saying is in the _Oxford Style
Manual_, copyright Oxford University Press 2003. (What's
yours?) In Section 5.3, page 118, they have the examples
'You are quite mad,' she said.
'You', she said, 'are quite mad.'
About double versus single quotes, they say in Section 5.13,
page 148
British practice is normally to enclose quoted matter
between single quotation marks, and to use double
quotation marks for a quotation within a quotation;
'Have you any idea', he said, 'what "dilly grout"
is?'
This is the preferred OUP practice for academic
books. The order is often reversed in newspapeers,
and uniformly in US practice.
A hugely popular book you may be familiar with, Lynn Truss's
_Eats, Shoots & Leaves_, was originally written with British
punctuation, and the American publishers make it clear that
the British punctuation has not been altered in their
edition of it. Leafing through it, I find already in the
Preface, on page xix, the following example of comma
placement:
[...] while his admiration for my purpose was "total",
he disagreed with virtually everything I said.
An American publication would have '"total,"' instead of
'"total",'.
(Note that she, a thoroughly English person, uses double
quotes while using British punctuation.)
On page xxiv Truss says
They are unlikely to spot that American usage
interestingly places all terminal punctuation inside
closing quotation marks, while British usage
sometimes "picks and chooses". (Like that.)
Note that while her punctuation is correctly British, her
statement that American usage places *all* terminal
punctuation inside closing quotation marks is grossly
inaccurate, as shown by the examples
His question was "What did she say?"
Did he say "She said it"? *
The question marks in those examples are placed correctly by
both British and American conventions. She would have been
nearly right if she had said "American usage places all
periods and commas inside closing quotation marks". **
It's also true that American convention doesn't always place
"terminal" exclamation marks inside quotes. Examples
closely paralleling the question-mark examples could be
constructed.
As for a colon or a semicolon adjacent to a quotation mark,
it would be possible to contrive examples where they go
inside quotation marks, as for example
Your description of the package labeling says that
the label had in one place "Fragile;" and "Do not
drop:" in another place. That is not correct; the
label has no semicolon after "Fragile" and no colon
after "drop".
but in general it's not too far wrong to say they never do.
(The above example is an example of textual criticism, which
in general demands more precise punctuation than do other
forms of text.)
Please note that in supplying support for your sweeping,
unequivocal statement "the Brits use the single quote
instead of double" and "they follow the same standard as
Americans for the commas and periods", you are allowing for
no exceptions. My support is from respected sources, but I
don't deny that *some* British publishers follow different
conventions than those of the Oxford University Press and
Lynne Truss's rule setter.
If you want to soften your remarks to allow exceptions, I'll
probably have no great argument with you.
* (Some people might expect a comma after "was" and after
"Did he say". If I remember right, a comma should be used
in similar cases only where the quoted strings are in
dialog.)
** Note that my sentence
She would have been nearly right if she had said
"American usage places all periods and commas
inside closing quotation marks".
is a good example of the period going outside the quotation
marks even when the quoted string is a complete sentence.
The applicable rule is that the period goes inside the
quotation marks only if the quoted string carries the
dominant sense of the overall sentence. In the example, it
does not.
don groves
Apparently, mine did.
Thanks to all of you who furthered my education in this matter
and apologies to those offended. I don't recall ever seeing this
form in print and it still seems foreign to me but I abide by the
wisdom of the group (plus I snuck a look myself). (= AmE .")
As penance, I'll keep my eyes open for examples in my daily
reading.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
don groves
"Calvin the Bold," eh? It has a certain ring. But I prefer the
tiger, Hobbes.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
Jordan Abel
> Peter Seibel <pe...@javamonkey.com> writes:
>> Many computer programmers also use the British style for similar
>> reasons as the textual critics. The New Hacker's Dictionary, 3rd ed.
>> gives this example:
>>
>> Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd".
>>
>> vs.
>>
>> Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd."
>>
>> Where "dd." and "dd" have different meanings to the program to which
>> they are commands.
>
> This should be rewritten to avoid the ambiguity:
>
> Then type "dd" to delete a line from the file.
Not always possible
Peter Duncanson
wrote:
>
>> The Brits use the single quote instead of double,
>
>We've been assured by at least one British poster in
>alt.usage.english that it is not at all uncommon these days
>for *some* British publishers to use double quotes the same
>as we do.
I've just made a quick check of some British newspapers, press releases from
government and other sources, and other outpourings. The use of double
quotes appears to be standard in this type of material. I have not found an
exception in my brief trawl.
Single quotes are indeed used in British books - but not exclusively.
I would say that the total volume of material using double quotes far
exceeds that using single.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u)
Pat Durkin
> don groves wrote:
> > In article <Bd-dnSRuU6p...@gbronline.com>, Raymond S.
> > Wise at mplsra...@gbronline.com hath writ:
> >>
Hi, Ray.
I was taught the "British system", I guess, when I was learning advanced
punctuation back in the '50s (in Wisconsin public school system). We
weren't told that it was the "British system", however. We were told to put
the commas where they fit in the sentence as a whole, and put the quotation
marks around the selections that are being cited. If the comma or period
isn't part of the quotation, then it doesn't belong inside the quotation
marks. Then, we were allowed to use our own judgement when the question
became iffy. We were not told that we were writing for publication by the
University of Chicago Press.
As for Donna's citation, I looked at it. Besides using AUE as the expert
source in this punctuation matter, the citation seems to refer to Mark
Israel's work. There is a remark stating that the variation in the US style
may have something to do with a typography problem.
That leads me right back to the need to restate the usage of the so-called
"American Style (or practice)", which some find is based on a particular
publisher's style manual. If people are not going to submit their writing
to a publisher, they shouldn't be held to this particular style--and if they
do intend the particular writing in question to be published, they need to
find out from the intended publisher what, exactly, that publisher wishes to
use in the way of style.
--
Pat
durkinpa at msn.com
Wisconsin
Raymond S. Wise
You are certainly right that if you intend to submit your writing to a
particular publication, you should follow the style preferred by that
publication. You are very wrong, however, if you believe that the American
style is something dictated by *The Chicago Manual of Style.* In this case,
the Manual is following prevailing American style--and that was why it was
mentioned in this thread, as a typical example of usage advice given in
America on the question of where to put commas and periods related to
closing question marks. I have previously pointed out in one of these
newsgroups that *The Century Dictionary,* an American dictionary of 1895,
which can be seen in facsimile form (in DjVu or JPEG images) at
www.century-dictionary.com , using the American style. I'm sure an
examination of other documents and books from the time prior to the first
publication of the Chicago Manual will show that the American style was in
use, and the authors of the style were no more innovative in suggesting that
American authors follow it than if they were to indicate that in America,
the spellings "favorite" and "traveled" are preferred to "favourite" and
"travelled."
If you were not taught the American style in an American school, I am quite
surprised and, frankly, think that your teachers did you a disservice.
However that they did not follow standard American usage does not affect its
status as standard American usage from which they were diverging.
geo...@ankerstein.org
> *Do You Speak American?*
I put in the "?" for you. :-)
I was most impressed with the recordings of black
English from about 1940 (though characterizing these
recordings as "slave" was a little dishonest).
They spoke better English than the Dean of American-
American Affairs at UVA does. Sad, so sad.
GFH
Pat Durkin
Ray, I do recall the long list of examples you copied from the Century
Dictionary. Mostly, ibids, if I recall correctly. I thought that I
expressed my gratitude for your work at that time, and perhaps did not state
clearly that your examples were all examples of research submitted for
publication. Now, I suppose it would be difficult to find anything as
informal as private letters printed as facsimiles. That would be the kind
of indication of usage that is _not_ submitted for publication by the
writers. Informal writing, such as one finds in such places as in this
newsgroup.
I do have my standards, and I know that I err frequently in my punctuation,
as well as word choice. But what I really would like to see is that when
people ask about punctuation rules, the responder will clarify the question
as to the purpose to which the rules are to be put, or will mention that the
styles suggested are for publication.
Oh, yes, I _see_ that you don't think the rules are to be limited to
publication. You mention standards again and again. But what exemplars of
informal writing by Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway can you provide? That
would be, of course, unedited and not intended for publication? What rules
did these leaders of US style in writing follow? And when(at what stage of
your schooling) did you learn the rules that you claim to be standards? How
closely do you hew to the standards in your informal writing?
I don't feel I was badly served by my teachers in grade school or in high
school.
Raymond S. Wise
ending quotation marks, Pat Durkin wrote:
> Ray, I do recall the long list of examples you copied from the Century
> Dictionary. Mostly, ibids, if I recall correctly. I thought that I
> expressed my gratitude for your work at that time, and perhaps did
> not state clearly that your examples were all examples of research
> submitted for publication. Now, I suppose it would be difficult to
> find anything as informal as private letters printed as facsimiles.
> That would be the kind of indication of usage that is _not_ submitted
> for publication by the writers. Informal writing, such as one finds
> in such places as in this newsgroup.
>
> I do have my standards, and I know that I err frequently in my
> punctuation, as well as word choice. But what I really would like to
> see is that when people ask about punctuation rules, the responder
> will clarify the question as to the purpose to which the rules are to
> be put, or will mention that the styles suggested are for publication.
>
> Oh, yes, I _see_ that you don't think the rules are to be limited to
> publication. You mention standards again and again. But what
> exemplars of informal writing by Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway can
> you provide? That would be, of course, unedited and not intended for
> publication? What rules did these leaders of US style in writing
> follow? And when(at what stage of your schooling) did you learn the
I have to ask why we should be in the slightest interested in the informal
usage of these writers. If they had strong opinions about punctuation, I
would have expected them either to have insisted that their own style be
followed when their works were published (as I believe Bernard Shaw, for
one, did), and/or they would have written articles about the sort of
punctuation they recommended. But even the most extraordinary of writers
are, in the vast majority of cases, going adhere to the standard punctuation
and spelling practices of their time and place.
> rules that you claim to be standards? How closely do you hew to the
> standards in your informal writing?
I'm sure I learned the American style very long ago. I was introduced to the
comma inside the closing quotation marks in the *Dick and Jane* primers, as
in the example shown at
http://www.texaschapbookpress.com/magellanslog53/dickandjane/dandjandmidi07.htm
[quote]
"One, two, three," said Jane.
[end quote]
As another poster pointed out, however, this particular treatment of the
comma would be standard in British English as well. The usage we have been
discussing, in which a comma might precede the closing quotation mark of a
book chapter title, for example, would likely not have shown up during the
first year or two of school studies, but I have no doubt that the British
practice was never taught to us as something to emulate, any more than were
British spellings such as "favourite."
Also, our teachers in grade school would not have given any thought to
teaching us how to write informal English. Such English is very common in
published writing today, but it was less common back then. Newspaper
columnists at that time, for example, in contrast to today, would have
tended to write in a rather formal style. And when we were writing informal
English, when representing dialogue in stories written in high school, for
example, we would still have adhered to the American style of punctuation.
As for what style I adhere to in my own informal writing, you can see it
yourself by going to Google Groups archive at www.deja.com and doing a
search for "mplsray". (Note the punctuation there, which was a quite
deliberate deviation from the standard American practice.) I generally try
to write in informal Standard American English. I adhere to the standard
American punctuation practice even though, when using QuoteFix with Outlook
Express, it means that a sentence such as
This is an example of boldface type: *Boldface type.*
will *not* appear in boldface type, because the interior period means that
the phrase will not appear in boldface, whereas it would if I were to write:
This is an example of boldface type: *Boldface type*.
Also note that I am very aware of my punctuation practices because, as I
pointed out in a previous post, I alter the practice when writing in French
or Esperanto.
>
> I don't feel I was badly served by my teachers in grade school or in
> high school.
Raymond S. Wise
That was an interesting segment. The point of it, which I would expect
remains controversial, was to show that AAVE diverged most from other
dialects of American English when blacks moved outside the Southern states
during and after World War II and became isolated in city ghettoes, compared
to the situation which had existed in the South.
I was very pleased with *Do You Speak American?* Many things we have
discussed in these newsgroups were mentioned. The treatment of African
American Vernacular English was very good. The program illustrated what I
have previously discussed about teaching black children Standard American
English while at the same time respecting their mother dialect. Children
were shown being taught to code-switch from AAVE (which in that particular
experimental program, "Academic English Mastery," was called "African
American language" or "AAL") to Standard American English (which was
referred to in that program as "mainstream American English). This may well
be the only time that the average American--or the average American who
watches PBS, in any case--has seen code-switching being taught. Heck, it's
the first time *I've* seen it, I think, although I've read about it often
enough.
Even the US Federal Court case *King v. Ann Arbor* was mentioned, as was the
fact that the Oakland School Board was trying to achieve essentially the
same thing as was accomplished in that case. However, it was not actually
stated what programs were put into place after the case was won. (The
"Academic English Mastery" program was filmed in another part of the
country.)
Pat Durkin
> The subject under discussion being the treatment of punctuation marks
inside
> ending quotation marks, Pat Durkin wrote:
>
> > I do have my standards, and I know that I err frequently in my
> > punctuation, as well as word choice. But what I really would like to
> > see is that when people ask about punctuation rules, the responder
> > will clarify the question as to the purpose to which the rules are to
> > be put, or will mention that the styles suggested are for publication.
> >
> > Oh, yes, I _see_ that you don't think the rules are to be limited to
> > publication. You mention standards again and again. But what
> > exemplars of informal writing by Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway can
> > you provide? That would be, of course, unedited and not intended for
> > publication? What rules did these leaders of US style in writing
> > follow?
> I have to ask why we should be in the slightest interested in the informal
> usage of these writers.
I suppose I think that vocabulary and usage standards, if they mean anything
at all, are based on the respected users of the language. From that, I
extrapolate that the standards for making oneself understood in the written
form are likewise based on the respected users.
> If they had strong opinions about punctuation, I
> would have expected them either to have insisted that their own style be
> followed when their works were published (as I believe Bernard Shaw, for
> one, did), and/or they would have written articles about the sort of
> punctuation they recommended.
And I expect that the creative urge among writers, for the most part,
eschews the petty details of trying to teach and enforce the rules the
writers might impose upon themselves.
If Shaw felt he needed to insist his work be left untouched, then such
details, to him, were integral parts of his oeuvre. I understand that many
writers today, unsung heroes, struggle to avoid the chopping and hacking
that editors and publishers impose upon their works. I wonder how many of
them insist to the point that the editor or publisher inserts the "sic", or
adds a footnote denying responsibility for problems the reader might
encounter. And thinking in terms of "cutting", one of the prizes of top
directors is the right to the final (director's) cut in film-making.
Of course, many of us consider the entire matter of the placement of commas
and periods with regard to quotation marks not really of great import in our
desire to communicate in writing. I wonder if anyone ever thought of
calling Shaw a control freak. And I suppose the reference to "anal" would
not have been understood in his day.
But even the most extraordinary of writers
> are, in the vast majority of cases, going adhere to the standard
punctuation
> and spelling practices of their time and place.
>
As above. . .the issue is probably not considered of any great import in
terms of communication, and easy to ignore or go along with the editors, in
the interest of getting their money sooner. But we don't see their informal
writing, so who is to be the judge? My understanding is that many of them
are horrible grammaticians and spellers, so why would I assume their
punctuation patterns to be any more disciplined?
>
> I'm sure I learned the American style very long ago. I was introduced to
the
> comma inside the closing quotation marks in the *Dick and Jane* primers,
as
> in the example shown at
>
>
http://www.texaschapbookpress.com/magellanslog53/dickandjane/dandjandmidi07.htm
>
>
> [quote]
>
> "One, two, three," said Jane.
>
> [end quote]
>
>
Again, done for publication. But in my practice, I would punctuate that
example in the same way as you (or the book) did. The comma within the
quotes honors the complete statement as a thought.
I didn't have the primer as my writing exercise book, however (and I don't
recall my teachers stopping my reading to point out the punctuation). When
I was reading and learning to write at that level, the formation of
individual letters was much more important than the marks placed before and
after the words.
Actually, writing with number 2 pencils meant that my sweaty little hands
smeared my work and made it very unsightly, which seemed to matter much more
to the teachers. Oh, and let's not speak of the bent nibs and backward
stutter-strokes when using the pen to spatter ink and make blots all over
the paper. I can't recall when I began learning punctuation. I think it
was probably about the level of fourth grade--but that wouldn't have
involved strict discipline about the placing of punctuation in dialog.
> As another poster pointed out, however, this particular treatment of the
> comma would be standard in British English as well. The usage we have been
> discussing, in which a comma might precede the closing quotation mark of a
> book chapter title, for example, would likely not have shown up during the
> first year or two of school studies, but I have no doubt that the British
> practice was never taught to us as something to emulate, any more than
were
> British spellings such as "favourite."
I don't use that spelling, but I do find myself writing "behaviour" quite
often. I note that a number of others also use the "British spelling" of
the "ou" in place of the "o", and other variations from the "mother tongue".
I suspect we weren't disciplined enough. It wasn't the kind of error that
brought out the ruler-on-the-palm.
>
> Also, our teachers in grade school would not have given any thought to
> teaching us how to write informal English. Such English is very common in
> published writing today, but it was less common back then. Newspaper
> columnists at that time, for example, in contrast to today, would have
> tended to write in a rather formal style. And when we were writing
informal
> English, when representing dialogue in stories written in high school, for
> example, we would still have adhered to the American style of punctuation.
It would have all depended on the styles our teachers were educated in. And
I would warrant that very few of them were raised to use what is now
identified as the American style. Regardless of the age and respect that
may now be accorded The Century Dictionary, I think that its use as a primer
for writing and publishing styles was not that of a final authority. I
can't recall a single instance in which my free composition exercises
involved dialog, and can't recall the workbook exercises (in high school) in
which punctuation was drilled in which I didn't "ace" the exercises. (Note:
do you qualify your spelling of "dialogue" as British, or "mannered"? How
about catalog(ue)? Not in the same class as favo(u)rite?)
But these are just opinions. Many of my teachers may have been taught by
furriners, you know. How about yours? How, when and where would your
teachers have been educated? I was in grades four through eight from 1946
through 1950. My teachers, for the most part, would have been educated
pre-war, and some of them in convents. Probably some of those teachers had
two years or less of college-level training.
>
> As for what style I adhere to in my own informal writing, you can see it
> yourself by going to Google Groups archive at www.deja.com and doing a
> search for "mplsray". (Note the punctuation there, which was a quite
> deliberate deviation from the standard American practice.) I generally try
> to write in informal Standard American English. I adhere to the standard
> American punctuation practice even though, when using QuoteFix with
Outlook
> Express, it means that a sentence such as
>
> This is an example of boldface type: *Boldface type.*
>
> will *not* appear in boldface type, because the interior period means that
> the phrase will not appear in boldface, whereas it would if I were to
write:
>
> This is an example of boldface type: *Boldface type*.
>
> Also note that I am very aware of my punctuation practices because, as I
> pointed out in a previous post, I alter the practice when writing in
French
> or Esperanto.
>
Of course, Ray. But those are your particular games and challenges to
yourself. Are you a teacher of the respective styles? Do you teach
composition for publication in US English? At what level?
Then I would expect that those particular standards, being part of the tools
of your trade, would be very important to you. But I wouldn't expect you to
try to teach your art to the mass participants in AUE without your
explaining where you are coming from.
Robert Bannister
> punctuation they recommended. But even the most extraordinary of writers
> are, in the vast majority of cases, going adhere to the standard punctuation
> and spelling practices of their time and place.
Would they not, in fact, be edited by the publisher so that the spelling
and punctuation conformed to the publisher's ideas? I believe there have
been and still are publishers who have very idiosyncratic ideas. The
writer may write what he or she wishes, but the work will be edited
before publication.
I have mentioned before how in all the Isaac Asimov works I possess,
that were published prior to about 1970, the preterite of 'fit' is
printed 'fitted'. On closer inspection, I note these are British
publications, so that the printed word does not necessarily reflect what
the author actually wrote.
--
Rob Bannister
Raymond S. Wise
You are correct. Unless the author had very strong opinions about going
against standard practice, and unless he also had the clout to have the
publisher follow his (the author's) practice, a published work will reflect
the publisher's standards. So let me restate: "Even the most extraordinary
of publishers are, in the vast majority of cases, going to adhere to the
standard punctuation and spelling practices of their time and place."
An example of such idiosyncratic practice was the simplified spelling which
appeared in the *Chicago Tribune* many years ago, before the publisher (or
perhaps the editor) finally said to heck with it and returned to standard
American spelling.
Raymond S. Wise
As far as I can see, what you have written above constitutes a gratuitous
insult.
I thought you wanted a personal history of how I came to use standard
American practice, and I tried to give you that as well as I could with the
materials at hand. Instead, you wanted proof from me that the practice I
advocate *is* the standard American practice. Since that is the case, it is
*your* responsibility to prove that I do *not* use standard American
practice, *because the burden of proof belongs to the person who makes an
extraordinary claim,* and in this case that person is you. If it were not,
the other Americans in these two newsgroups would have been sharply
criticizing what I have been writing in this thread. But even Bob
Cunningham, who adheres to the British system as far as the relationship
between periods or commas and closing question mark is concerned,
acknowledges that the system I have been discussing *is* the standard
American system.
As for the so-called *games* I play, all I intend to do is write text in
ASCII which could, in principle, be automatically translated into standard
text if anyone wished to do so. I don't *have* to do it that way--most
people in this newsgroup don't (they usually write book titles with no
indication of italicization, for example)--but my practice is in no way a
"game."
Ben Zimmer
>
> I was very pleased with *Do You Speak American?* Many things we have
> discussed in these newsgroups were mentioned. The treatment of African
> American Vernacular English was very good. The program illustrated what I
> have previously discussed about teaching black children Standard American
> English while at the same time respecting their mother dialect. Children
> were shown being taught to code-switch from AAVE (which in that particular
> experimental program, "Academic English Mastery," was called "African
> American language" or "AAL") to Standard American English (which was
> referred to in that program as "mainstream American English). This may well
> be the only time that the average American--or the average American who
> watches PBS, in any case--has seen code-switching being taught. Heck, it's
> the first time *I've* seen it, I think, although I've read about it often
> enough.
One thing that was interesting usagewise about the "Academic English
Mastery" segment was how the teacher used "code-switch" transitively
(e.g., "Code-switch this sentence!"). In academic literature I've only
seen the intransitive form (e.g., "Students know how to code-switch").
Googling, I find one example of transitive "code-switch"... in a speech
by none other than Robert MacNeil ("A Fresh Look at Black English"):
http://www.coro.org/coro_centers/sf/documents/MacNeil_Keynote.pdf
MacNeil quotes the teacher featured in "DYSA?" ("And, Maiso, how do you
code-switch it into Mainstream American English?"). So this may simply
be an idiosyncrasy of the teacher rather than an emergent new usage.
Bob Cunningham
<mplsra...@gbronline.com> said:
[...]
> [...] even Bob Cunningham, who adheres to the British
> system as far as the relationship between periods or commas
> and closing question mark is concerned, acknowledges that
> the system I have been discussing *is* the standard
> American system.
I like to think that I adhere to a British system of
punctuation, the one prescribed most recently by the _Oxford
Style Manual_, in almost *every* respect. The single
exception that I know about is the prioritization of double
quotes and single quotes. There may be other ways I deviate
from the Oxford University Press (OUP) style, but they would
be due to lack of understanding rather than conscious
choice.
For a long time I used single quotes as required by the OUP
style. I switched to double quotes when I learned that some
significant number of British publishers use them. My
motivation was that I found single quotes objectionable when
the quoted material contained one or more apostrophes. That
problem is made worse with ASCII text in which the raised
comma and raised reversed comma are not easily available and
are replaced by the single apostrophe character.
Note that I said above "*a* British system", not "*the*
British system". There are apparently enough differences in
British styles to allow one British alt.usage.english (AUE)
poster to sneer at the idea of recognizing OUP as the
standard-definer for style.
I've used the phrase "the British system" in past years, but
I was not as well-informed then as I like to think I am now.
As for "the standard American system", there has been a
pattern of taking exception in AUE to the use of "standard"
in that way because it is certainly true that there is no
authority empowered to set standards in one sense of the
word. But I like to think of "standard" as defined by
_Webster's New World College Dictionary Fourth Edition_:
4 the type, model, or example commonly or
generally accepted or adhered to
I don't believe that anyone can reasonably argue that the
practice of putting periods and commas inside ending quotes
come hell or high water is not standard American punctuation
in that sense. It's not only "generally accepted or adhered
to" but nearly universally followed.
I say "nearly" because there are relatively minor exceptions
that are discussed in _The Chicago Manual of Style 14th
Edition_, Section 5.13. For example, they say in part
There may be some risk [with following the American
system] in such specialized material as textual
criticism, but in that case authors and editors may take
care to avoid the danger by alternative phrasing or by
employing, in this exacting field, the exacting British
system.
They also say
In linguistic and philosophical works, specialized terms
are regularly punctuated the British way, along with
the use of single quotation marks (see 6.67, 6.74).
Ross Howard
<exw...@earthlink.net> wrought:
>Note that I said above "*a* British system", not "*the*
>British system". There are apparently enough differences in
>British styles to allow one British alt.usage.english (AUE)
>poster to sneer at the idea of recognizing OUP as the
>standard-definer for style.
Hi, me! Although my only beeves with OUP style are -"ize/-ization" and
the Oxford/Harvard comma. I don't remember ever commenting on their
punctuation practices, which I'm sure are pretty much in line with the
standard -- there goes that word again -- British ones, and so can't
be objected to.
I do, though, remember saying something that I think is worth saying
again. The OUP is only one of many reputable UK publishers. The fact
that it publishes the OED and used to be the Fowlers' publishing house
should not give it any more weight than is afforded to other
publishers on questions of style. Indeed, when it flies in the face of
almost everyone else's style (cf."- ize" and the Oxford comma), it
should be given no weight at all.
--
Ross Howard
Bob Cunningham
<ggu...@yahoo.com> said:
> On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 13:13:10 GMT, Bob Cunningham
> <exw...@earthlink.net> wrought:
> >Note that I said above "*a* British system", not "*the*
> >British system". There are apparently enough differences in
> >British styles to allow one British alt.usage.english (AUE)
> >poster to sneer at the idea of recognizing OUP [(Oxford
> > University Press)] as the standard-definer for style.
> Hi, me! Although my only beeves with OUP style are -
> "ize/-ization" and the Oxford/Harvard comma.
The Oxford comma is so eminently reasonable and praiseworthy
that I would tend to avoid any style guide that did not
recommend its use.
> I don't remember ever commenting on their
> punctuation practices, which I'm sure are pretty much in line with the
> standard -- there goes that word again -- British ones, and so can't
> be objected to.
> I do, though, remember saying something that I think is worth saying
> again. The OUP is only one of many reputable UK publishers. The fact
> that it publishes the OED and used to be the Fowlers' publishing house
> should not give it any more weight than is afforded to other
> publishers on questions of style.
Is there any British style manual that's comparable in
quality and comprehensiveness to _Hart's Rules_ and its
modern successor _The Oxford Style Manual_?
I think I've seen references to a Penguin punctuation guide,
but I haven't seen the book.
Lynn Truss, in her _Eats, Shoots & Leaves_ ("originally
published in Great Britain in 2003 by Profile Books, Ltd",
which doesn't sound OUP connected) says
My own feeling is that one shouldn't be too rigid
about the Oxford comma. Sometimes the sentence
is improved by including it; sometimes it isn't.
My feeling is that it's hard to find examples where a
sentence is improved by removing the Oxford comma, it's easy
to find examples that are improved by including it, and one
of the most important considerations in punctuation should
be consistency. So, I would suggest using the Oxford comma
consistently and finding ways to reword sentences that seem
to need its removal.
I've seen it stated that American newspapers like to leave
out the Oxford comma to save space. To me that's an absurd
reason: "Don't worry if the readers are more likely to be
confused; let's make a negligible amount of more space."
The best example I've seen of the fallacy of eschewing the
Oxford comma is the well-known dedication "To my parents,
Ayn Rand and God".
> Indeed, when it flies in the face of
> almost everyone else's style (cf."- ize" and the Oxford comma), it
> should be given no weight at all.
I can't get excited about the "-ize/-ise" thing. Either way
seems okay to me. Maybe that's because we have both "-ise"
words ("surprise", "revise", "devise") and "-ize" words
("realize", "idealize", "fantasize").
Interesting to see, the non-OUP _Chambers Dictionary_ (1993)
has "surprise", "revise", and "devise"; and it has "realize
or -ise", "idealize or -ise", and "fantasize or -ise".
And the OUP _New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary_ has
"realize [...] Also -ise", "idealize [...] Also -ise", and
"fantasize [...] Also ph-, -ise".
I get the feeling a British writer should be able to use
either "-ize" or "-ise" in American "-ize" words without
being fairly criticized, so long as he or she is consistent.
Bob Cunningham
<exw...@earthlink.net> said:
[...]
> I can't get excited about the "-ize/-ise" thing. Either way
> seems okay to me. Maybe that's because we have both "-ise"
> words ("surprise", "revise", "devise") and "-ize" words
> ("realize", "idealize", "fantasize").
> Interesting to see, the non-OUP _Chambers Dictionary_ (1993)
> has "surprise", "revise", and "devise"; and it has "realize
> or -ise", "idealize or -ise", and "fantasize or -ise".
> And the OUP _New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary_ has
> "realize [...] Also -ise", "idealize [...] Also -ise", and
> "fantasize [...] Also ph-, -ise".
> I get the feeling a British writer should be able to use
> either "-ize" or "-ise" in American "-ize" words without
> being fairly criticized, so long as he or she is consistent.
As always, though, the most important rule is to do it
whatever way the guy who's paying the bills wants it done.
The _Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary_
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ has, for example,
realize, UK USUALLY realise
which can be read as
realise, UK OFTEN realize
It has the same pattern for the other two "-ize" words
discussed above. I would expect to find it with most other
American "-ize" words (not "size", of course).
Ross Howard
<exw...@earthlink.net> wrought:
>On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 15:53:04 +0100, Ross Howard
><ggu...@yahoo.com> said:
>
>> On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 13:13:10 GMT, Bob Cunningham
>> <exw...@earthlink.net> wrought:
>
>> >Note that I said above "*a* British system", not "*the*
>> >British system". There are apparently enough differences in
>> >British styles to allow one British alt.usage.english (AUE)
>> >poster to sneer at the idea of recognizing OUP [(Oxford
>> > University Press)] as the standard-definer for style.
>
>> Hi, me! Although my only beeves with OUP style are -
>> "ize/-ization" and the Oxford/Harvard comma.
>
>The Oxford comma is so eminently reasonable and praiseworthy
>that I would tend to avoid any style guide that did not
>recommend its use.
I can't really justify my dislike of insistence upon it. After all,
I've gone on and on here about how reasonable and praisworthy a
practice it is to hyphenate all compound premodifiers, so my chariness
about the Oxford comma is inconsistent to say the least. Even so, I
still think things like "Tom, Dick, and Harry" are just annoying.
>
>> I don't remember ever commenting on their
>> punctuation practices, which I'm sure are pretty much in line with the
>> standard -- there goes that word again -- British ones, and so can't
>> be objected to.
>
>> I do, though, remember saying something that I think is worth saying
>> again. The OUP is only one of many reputable UK publishers. The fact
>> that it publishes the OED and used to be the Fowlers' publishing house
>> should not give it any more weight than is afforded to other
>> publishers on questions of style.
>
>Is there any British style manual that's comparable in
>quality and comprehensiveness to _Hart's Rules_ and its
>modern successor _The Oxford Style Manual_?
Probably not. But comprehensiveness is surely not all that matters. If
I was editing a paper on botanical research, for example, I'd be far
more interested on the style of botanists than on some catch-all,
multitopic guide like the Oxford.
>I think I've seen references to a Penguin punctuation guide,
>but I haven't seen the book.
I used to have an excellent one -- a retired English schoolmaster,
amazingly) -- but mislaid it in some move or other. If I remember the
title I'll post a follow-up.
>
>Lynn Truss, in her _Eats, Shoots & Leaves_ ("originally
>published in Great Britain in 2003 by Profile Books, Ltd",
>which doesn't sound OUP connected) says
>
> My own feeling is that one shouldn't be too rigid
> about the Oxford comma. Sometimes the sentence
> is improved by including it; sometimes it isn't.
>
>My feeling is that it's hard to find examples where a
>sentence is improved by removing the Oxford comma, it's easy
>to find examples that are improved by including it, and one
>of the most important considerations in punctuation should
>be consistency. So, I would suggest using the Oxford comma
>consistently and finding ways to reword sentences that seem
>to need its removal.
My main objection to it is in the "hop, skip(,) and jump"-type lists
of three. In most other contexts I doubt I even notice ir
>I've seen it stated that American newspapers like to leave
>out the Oxford comma to save space. To me that's an absurd
>reason: "Don't worry if the readers are more likely to be
>confused; let's make a negligible amount of more space."
>
>The best example I've seen of the fallacy of eschewing the
>Oxford comma is the well-known dedication "To my parents,
>Ayn Rand and God".
>
>> Indeed, when it flies in the face of
>> almost everyone else's style (cf."- ize" and the Oxford comma), it
>> should be given no weight at all.
>
>I can't get excited about the "-ize/-ise" thing. Either way
>seems okay to me. Maybe that's because we have both "-ise"
>words ("surprise", "revise", "devise") and "-ize" words
>("realize", "idealize", "fantasize").
>
>Interesting to see, the non-OUP _Chambers Dictionary_ (1993)
>has "surprise", "revise", and "devise"; and it has "realize
>or -ise", "idealize or -ise", and "fantasize or -ise".
>
>And the OUP _New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary_ has
>"realize [...] Also -ise", "idealize [...] Also -ise", and
>"fantasize [...] Also ph-, -ise".
>
>I get the feeling a British writer should be able to use
>either "-ize" or "-ise" in American "-ize" words without
>being fairly criticized, so long as he or she is consistent.
Oh yes, I agree completely. I was only taking issue with the OUP's
style ("-ize" only) because it is contrary to the practice of the vast
majority of British writers and editors. (The same goes for single
quotes. I'm share your dislike of the visual appearance of things like
this:
'I'm going out, Mum. I'll be at John's.'
--
Ross Howard
Ross Howard
<exw...@earthlink.net> wrought:
>On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 16:02:43 GMT, Bob Cunningham
Yet COD9 doesn't even have an entry for "realise" (under "realize" it
says "also *realise*"). This is as good example as any of what I mean
when I complain about the ivory-tower (or perhaps that should be
"ivory dreaming spire") arrogance of the OUP. A modern dictionary
should not attempt to con people into believing that its own hobby-
horses are ridden by -- or are even of the slightest interest to --
anyone else. That "realize" entry is downright misleading, because
most Brits (including most professional writers and editors) spell
that word with an "s". In other words, "realise" is not just some
variant to be mentioned in parenthesis between gritted teeth; it's the
standard form, and it deserves to be reflected as such in a British
(well, sort of) dictionary.
As to the Oxford Style Manual, in my 25 years or so of professional
writing in various fields (copywriting, journalism, editing and
translating) for British and other European clients, not once have I
been instructed to follow it. Style guides in Britain tend to be very
specific, you see, and the general ones (i.e. equivalents of the
Chicago one in America), including the Oxford one -- which I didn't
even know existed until I saw it mentioned here a couple of years ago
-- are not at all well-known, much less insisted upon.
--
Ross Howard
Mike Lyle
The Guardian Style Guide says:
"ze
endings: use se, eg emphasise, realise; but capsize"
(HTF do I get out of these bolds?) I think it's one of the very few
late-19C attempts at reform which Oxford has refused to give up. I
agree with the logic, and I do try to comply; but it's an effort.
After all, why not "refuze"?
What I was taught at school was "z for Greek, s for Latin"; but I
think the Oxford movement (not, of course, "The Oxford Movement") was
trying to democratize and democratise the whole thing so you didn't
need to have had a classical education before you could work the
system. As a good social democrat I'm up for that; and as a good
Atlanto-Pacificist I think it's quite a good idea to follow majority
American practice (sic) when it doesn't do violence to our cherished
folkways. But it just doesn't seem to have caught on; so maybe we
should just go on driving on the left of this issue -- nobody gets
killed, for God's sake. Short of some future nasty Biblical
shibboleth incident...hmmm...on the other hand, we don't quite know
what Bill Bonde's got up his sleeve...
Mike.
Alan Jones
"Ross Howard" <ggu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:rjsvt015l11sejmf2...@4ax.com...
True as all that may be, the infuence of the OUP is chiefly through its
"Hart's Rules" or whatever the current title is of its proof-readers'
reference manual. Newspapers may have their own idiosyncratic house rules,
but many book publishers or printers find it easier to use the OUP's,
perhaps with one or two modifications such as RH (and I) would wish to make.
There isn't really any British parallel to the apparent dominance in the US
of the Chicago rules. As a teacher at secondary level, my policy was to
explain the various possibilities and leave boys to develop what set of
personal rules they preferred, provided they were consistent in appllying
their choices. It just isn't a matter deserving much fuss.
Alan Jones
Robert Bannister
> The best example I've seen of the fallacy of eschewing the
> Oxford comma is the well-known dedication "To my parents,
> Ayn Rand and God".
Whichever system you choose, confusion will still occur occasionally. If
I read "To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God", I would be puzzling over how
his parents could be named "Ayn Rand" because the double comma looks
like a parenthesis to me, eg "To my parents (Ayn Rand) and God".
--
Rob Bannister
Pat Durkin
> Pat Durkin wrote:
> > "Raymond S. Wise" <mplsra...@gbronline.com> wrote in message
> > news:S8SdnUpsOaF...@gbronline.com...
> >> The subject under discussion being the treatment of punctuation
> >> marks inside ending quotation marks, Pat Durkin wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Oh, yes, I _see_ that you don't think the rules are to be limited to
> >>> publication. You mention standards again and again. But what
> >>> exemplars of informal writing by Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway can
> >>> you provide? That would be, of course, unedited and not intended
> >>> for publication? What rules did these leaders of US style in
> >>> writing follow?
> >
> >> I have to ask why we should be in the slightest interested in the
> >> informal usage of these writers.
> >
> > I suppose I think that vocabulary and usage standards, if they mean
> > anything at all, are based on the respected users of the language.
> > From that, I extrapolate that the standards for making oneself
> > understood in the written form are likewise based on the respected
> > users.
> >
> >
> > Of course, many of us consider the entire matter of the placement of
> > commas and periods with regard to quotation marks not really of great
> > import in our desire to communicate in writing. I wonder if anyone
> > ever thought of calling Shaw a control freak. And I suppose the
> > reference to "anal" would not have been understood in his day.
> >
> >
> > But even the most extraordinary of writers
> >> are, in the vast majority of cases, going adhere to the standard
> >> punctuation and spelling practices of their time and place.
> >>
> >>
> >> I'm sure I learned the American style very long ago. I was
> >> introduced to the comma inside the closing quotation marks in the
> >> *Dick and Jane* primers, as in the example shown at
> >> [quote]
> >>
> >> "One, two, three," said Jane.
> >>
> >> [end quote]
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Again, done for publication. But in my practice, I would punctuate
> > that example in the same way as you (or the book) did. The comma
> > within the quotes honors the complete statement as a thought.
> > I didn't have the primer as my writing exercise book, however (and I
> > don't recall my teachers stopping my reading to point out the
> > punctuation). When I was reading and learning to write at that
> > level, the formation of individual letters was much more important
> > than the marks placed before and after the words.
> >
> > I can't recall when I began
> > learning punctuation. I think it was probably about the level of
> > fourth grade--but that wouldn't have involved strict discipline about
> > the placing of punctuation in dialog.
> >
> >> As another poster pointed out, however, this particular treatment of
> >> the comma would be standard in British English as well. The usage we
> >> have been discussing, in which a comma might precede the closing
> >> quotation mark of a book chapter title, for example, would likely
> >> not have shown up during the first year or two of school studies,
> >> but I have no doubt that the British practice was never taught to us
> >> as something to emulate, any more than were British spellings such
> >> as "favourite."
> >
> >>
(PD: I snipped *boldface type* section)
> >>
> >> Also note that I am very aware of my punctuation practices because,
> >> as I pointed out in a previous post, I alter the practice when
> >> writing in French or Esperanto.
> >>
> >
> > Of course, Ray. But those are your particular games and challenges to
> > yourself.
( I mean your desire to switch punctuation styles when switching to French
or Esperanto. )Are you a teacher of the respective styles? Do you teach
> > composition for publication in US English? At what level?
These questions are asked in all seriousness.
> >
> > Then I would expect that those particular standards, being part of
> > the tools of your trade, would be very important to you. But I
> > wouldn't expect you to try to teach your art to the mass participants
> > in AUE without your explaining where you are coming from.
>
I honor the seriousness with which you approach your trade (if your trade it
be).
>
> As far as I can see, what you have written above constitutes a gratuitous
> insult.
I beg you to read my interspersed comments and to reinterpret what I have
written before and again today not as insults, but as serious comments and
questions.
>
> I thought you wanted a personal history of how I came to use standard
> American practice, and I tried to give you that as well as I could with
the
> materials at hand.
Yes. And to tell the truth, your memory of how you learned "the standard
American practice" is as arbitrary and vague as the way I learned my
"non-system", with the possible exception that you probably were and are
much more aware of details than I. If in the years since you first
learned your practice you have met many more people who accept and enforce
the ideas you learned, then I expect you can consider yourself (and many
others can consider you) an expert. I accept only that there is a force in
the majority. OK.
> Instead, you wanted proof from me that the practice I
> advocate *is* the standard American practice.
Since we don't have any established "Royal Academy", or, as far as I know,
any federal office or commission of standards to make such rules, even about
publishing practices, I don't accept any such "standard American practice".
I don't have to prove the non-existence. I make no claims about publishing
standards, beyond requesting that that caveat be expressed when discussing
the position of comma and period in the terminal position within quotation
marks. To correct people in these newsgroups (AEU and AUE), by insisting
that the US has some kind of "standard" beyond commonality of use in some
publications, or that informal writing such as that in which we USans
indulge here should be done in certain standard ways is to mislead. ( I
suspect that that is a bad sentence. Sorry.)
> Since that is the case, it is
> *your* responsibility to prove that I do *not* use standard American
> practice, *because the burden of proof belongs to the person who makes an
> extraordinary claim,* and in this case that person is you. If it were not,
> the other Americans in these two newsgroups would have been sharply
> criticizing what I have been writing in this thread. But even Bob
> Cunningham, who adheres to the British system as far as the relationship
> between periods or commas and closing question mark is concerned,
> acknowledges that the system I have been discussing *is* the standard
> American system.
>
I don't care about publishers' standards (if they exist, and I don't deny
their existence). I just don't think that commenting upon private
contributors' styles in these newsgroups with an eye to correcting and
standardizing their punctuation according to some proposed or supposed
publishers' standards is a useful practice, unless the "destined for
publication" is mentioned by the contributor or the responder. (And I
don't accuse you of doing such correcting.)
> As for the so-called *games* I play, all I intend to do is write text in
> ASCII which could, in principle, be automatically translated into standard
> text if anyone wished to do so. I don't *have* to do it that way--most
> people in this newsgroup don't (they usually write book titles with no
> indication of italicization, for example)--but my practice is in no way a
> "game."
Again, I had no intention of trivializing your contributions. I had thought
I was recognizing them. As to the reference to ASCII, as with your comments
about QuoteFix above, insofar as they deal with your particular choices and
ideas about possible uses of your text, I have no comment to make.
I hope you accept these comments as an apology for any hurt my words have
caused you. I hold you and your opinions in great, though non-conforming,
regard.
Odysseus
>
<snip>
> [...] As a good social democrat I'm up for that; and as a good
> Atlanto-Pacificist I think it's quite a good idea to follow majority
> American practice (sic) when it doesn't do violence to our cherished
> folkways.
Why the "(sic)"? The noun "practice" is always spelt with a "-ce";
it's the verb that has "-se", except in AmE.
--
Odysseus
Oliver Cromm
> Since we don't have any established "Royal Academy", or, as far as I know,
> any federal office or commission of standards to make such rules, even about
> publishing practices, I don't accept any such "standard American practice".
> I don't have to prove the non-existence. I make no claims about publishing
> standards, beyond requesting that that caveat be expressed when discussing
> the position of comma and period in the terminal position within quotation
> marks. To correct people in these newsgroups (AEU and AUE), by insisting
> that the US has some kind of "standard" beyond commonality of use in some
> publications, or that informal writing such as that in which we USans
> indulge here should be done in certain standard ways is to mislead. ( I
> suspect that that is a bad sentence. Sorry.)
You got it the wrong way round. It started with Don Groves criticizing
Raymond's spelling; that it is standard American practice was Ray's
defense (or rebuff).
--
Oliver C.
Maria Conlon
I must have missed the spelling thing. In this thread, the disagreement
started, IIRC, over a comma inside quotation marks that Don felt didn't
belong there. And I think Ray's "standard" was in reference to
punctuation within quotation marks (in the US).
Maria Conlon
Steve Hayes
OUP is not the only one that uses -ize, even in the UK. The others changed
their style, not OUP, and so they are not "flying in the face of" everyone
else's style.
I used to prefer the -ze spelling in my own writing, but gave up the unequal
struggle against Microsoft's spelling checker, which I suspect a lot of other
publishers may have done.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Raymond S. Wise
> "Raymond S. Wise" <mplsra...@gbronline.com> wrote in message
> news:mMSdndwIQLN...@gbronline.com...
>> Pat Durkin wrote:
>>> "Raymond S. Wise" <mplsra...@gbronline.com> wrote in message
>>> news:S8SdnUpsOaF...@gbronline.com...
>>>> The subject under discussion being the treatment of punctuation
>>>> marks inside ending quotation marks, Pat Durkin wrote:
[...]
>>>> Also note that I am very aware of my punctuation practices because,
>>>> as I pointed out in a previous post, I alter the practice when
>>>> writing in French or Esperanto.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Of course, Ray. But those are your particular games and challenges
>>> to yourself.
>
> ( I mean your desire to switch punctuation styles when switching to
> French or Esperanto. )Are you a teacher of the respective styles? Do
> you teach
>>> composition for publication in US English? At what level?
>
> These questions are asked in all seriousness.
I can't see what possible relevance it has to the discussion, but, as an act
of good faith, I'll answer: No, I am not a teacher of the respective styles,
nor do I teach composition for publication in US English.
It is irrelevant to the discussion because it in no way affects whether I am
correct on the matter of the respective styles, any more than you need to
know anything whatsoever about me in order to evaluate my statement that
"favourite" is the British style of spelling what Americans refer to as
"favorite."
>>>
>>> Then I would expect that those particular standards, being part of
>>> the tools of your trade, would be very important to you. But I
>>> wouldn't expect you to try to teach your art to the mass
>>> participants in AUE without your explaining where you are coming
>>> from.
I'm not teaching something "to the mass participants in AUE," since they
already know it!
The type of standard you are denigrating is stronger than any possible
language academy standard. Look at what has happened in France with the
"nouvelle orthographie." It has pretty much been a bust.
>
>> Since that is the case, it is
>> *your* responsibility to prove that I do *not* use standard American
>> practice, *because the burden of proof belongs to the person who
>> makes an extraordinary claim,* and in this case that person is you.
>> If it were not, the other Americans in these two newsgroups would
>> have been sharply criticizing what I have been writing in this
>> thread. But even Bob Cunningham, who adheres to the British system
>> as far as the relationship between periods or commas and closing
>> question mark is concerned, acknowledges that the system I have been
>> discussing *is* the standard American system.
>>
>
> I don't care about publishers' standards (if they exist, and I don't
> deny their existence). I just don't think that commenting upon
> private contributors' styles in these newsgroups with an eye to
> correcting and standardizing their punctuation according to some
> proposed or supposed publishers' standards is a useful practice,
> unless the "destined for publication" is mentioned by the contributor
> or the responder. (And I don't accuse you of doing such correcting.)
On the subject of periods and commas inside ending quotation marks, I
certainly have not been correcting anyone. I was the one who was corrected
for having used what did, in fact, follow standard American practice.
>
>> As for the so-called *games* I play, all I intend to do is write
>> text in ASCII which could, in principle, be automatically translated
>> into standard text if anyone wished to do so. I don't *have* to do
>> it that way--most people in this newsgroup don't (they usually write
>> book titles with no indication of italicization, for example)--but
>> my practice is in no way a "game."
>
> Again, I had no intention of trivializing your contributions. I had
> thought I was recognizing them. As to the reference to ASCII, as
> with your comments about QuoteFix above, insofar as they deal with
> your particular choices and ideas about possible uses of your text, I
> have no comment to make.
>
> I hope you accept these comments as an apology for any hurt my words
> have caused you. I hold you and your opinions in great, though
> non-conforming, regard.
I *was* greatly annoyed by the "games" comment. I accept your apology,
however.
Now that I think of it, I must have been made aware of the difference in
French and American punctuation styles since the very first year I began to
learn French. I have a very good teacher of French, who insisted we use the
French quotation marks ( « », for those who can read them). It is
inconceivable to me that he would have permitted us to follow the American
style on the matter of putting periods and commas within ending quotation
marks. So my Usenet practice is simply a continuation of what I have always
been doing when writing French.
don groves
lispa...@internet.uqam.ca hath writ:
apologized.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
Alan Jones
"Mike Lyle" <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:34auhbF...@individual.net...
[...]
> What I was taught at school was "z for Greek, s for Latin"; but I
> think the Oxford movement (not, of course, "The Oxford Movement") was
> trying to democratize and democratise the whole thing so you didn't
> need to have had a classical education before you could work the
[...]
Are you sure about the OUP/OED motive for backing "-ize" as stamdard?
Looking at the long OED entry (at "-ize") I doubt it.
Alan Jones
Oliver Cromm
> In article <nq7sh9yu7jc0$.d...@ocromm.my-fqdn.de>, Oliver Cromm at
> lispa...@internet.uqam.ca hath writ:
>> It started with Don Groves criticizing
>> Raymond's spelling;
>
> Punctuation, not spelling. And I have since retracted and
> apologized.
You're right. Now, did I have punctuation in mind and yet wrote
"spelling"? No, what I had in mind was a concept "spelling and
punctuation", but there doesn't seem to be one word for that.
--
Oliver C.