Arthur A. Gleckler scripsit:
> Some parts of the report put punctuation inside quotes (e.g.
> '"quote,",' which is correct) and other parts put it outside quotes
> (e.g. the incorrect '"quote",'). For example, see <5.1. Entry
> format> and search for:
The claim that one style is correct and the other is incorrect is,
well, incorrect. Both conventions have been and continue to be used.
The punctuation-inside style is the older one, and is most often used
in North America, whereas the punctuation-outside style is more recent,
generally used outside North America, and is more rational, since it
does not use quotation marks around something that is not itself part
of the quotation.
In technical prose, however, consistency is important, and the
punctuation-outside style is sometimes essential. The following example
is due to Eric Raymond:
To delete a line in the vi editor, type "dd".
If you rewrite that as:
To delete a line in the vi editor, type "dd."
some proportion of newbies will type dee-dee-dot, which happens to delete
*two* lines in the vi editor.
Therefore I recommend that the punctuation-outside style be adopted
throughout.
--
John Cowan <cowan_at_ccil.org> http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
It's like if you meet an really old, really rich guy covered in liver
spots and breathing with an oxygen tank, and you say, "I want to be
rich, too, so I'm going to start walking with a cane and I'm going to
act crotchety and I'm going to get liver disease. --Wil Shipley
Received on Tue Nov 14 2006 - 15:11:55 UTC