urge to kill rising... (a proof read rant)

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Whoever wrote these help files had no idea that commas go INSIDE the quote marks. As soon as I see " I feel the urge to release a primal scream, because I'll have to move yet another comma. A small thing, but geez, they didn't get ANY of them right

That's all. How come they can't get the little things right?

[Entsuropi]

Uhm... give example?

[Skar]

Dude, use find and replace.

[The Jade Knight]

Actually, my preferred method of grammar is a British-US mix that involves double (as opposed to single) quotation marks but general British punctuation (so, for example, commas are placed logically, not according to fixed rules).

So I do that regularly.  Just never in my English papers.

I also, for that matter, combine British and American spelling types, where I use "ou" instead of "o" (in words like "honour"), but -er instead of -re in words like "center".  I still haven't made up my mind about -ise or -ize though, though I think I'm leaning towards -ise.

[JP Dogberry]

Actually, the way grammer and punctuation are moving, as influenced by computers, is for the comma to go outside the quote marks, and for only what is directly quoted to go inside the quote marks. For example, in one particular code language "." means "Repeat last statement". Now, classically, and traditionally, it should be punctuated like this:

"Code code.." with the full stop/period inside the quotes. Since that messes up the code, it needs to be moved outside. Commas seem to follow the same rule.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just that it's moving that way. I have no doubt within the centuary, the world "Tickets" will be obsolete, replaced by the word "Tix".

[stacer]

Uh, yeah, perhaps in coding, but certainly not in any sort of thing I'm working on--meaning nonfiction in the social sciences or fiction.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

yeah, Jam, I've not seen one example of a period outside the quotes being proper usage outside of coding.

and skar, it's in about 50 different documents.

[JP Dogberry]

Well, I have, ok?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

well, when only one person has seen it, and when people who are professional writer/editors haven't, adn those people either recently or are still studying for higher education, I'm thinking that doesn't mean the system is moving toward it.

[The Jade Knight]

It's proper British grammar!

At least, depending on context.  You wouldn't have:
*'Take me to the store', she said.
But rather:
'Take me to the store,' she said.

But:
The man called them 'throps'.

Etc.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

and your american editor will shoot you in the face if you give that to him constantly.

[The Jade Knight]

That's really too bad.

Stupid Americans.  It's too bad consistency doesn't count for anything, eh?

[Archon]

Oh it counts for something. It counts for points towards a face-shooting.

[JP Dogberry]

We should shoot more americans in the face, or did I read that wrong?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

well, Jam, seeing as you don't have any guns, that'd be difficult, wouldn't it?