David said, "Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack off".

David said, 'Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack off'.

See how silly the second one is, using the same punctuation mark for the missing letter in don't as for what David spoke?

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@MSGID: <[email protected]>
David said, "Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack off".

David said, 'Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack off'.

See how silly the second one is, using the same punctuation mark for the missing letter in don't as for what David spoke?

I do not think that the second one is correct for how one would normally punctuate that sentence in English. We would normally use the double-quote
as in the first example. We would also put the period at the end inside of
the second double-quote mark.

Mike


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Mike Powell - DENIS MOSKO:

@MSGID: <[email protected]>
David said, "Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack
off".

David said, 'Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack
off'.

See how silly the second one is, using the same punctuation
mark for the missing letter in don't as for what David spoke?

I do not think that the second one is correct for how one would
normally punctuate that sentence in English.

Especially in ASCII, where the same character plays the roles of
the apostrophe and of the opening single quotation mark.

We would normally use the double-quote as in the first example.
We would also put the period at the end inside of the second
double-quote mark.

inside *of*? I think that `inside' is a complete preposition by
itself. The placement of the full stop insde the quotation is more
beautiful than outside it, whereas the logically correct
punctuation is the ugliest:

David said "Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack off.".

Both the quoted and quoting sentences shall have their terminating
punctuation. No comma is logically required after `said' because
David's utternace is its direct object.

David's request sounds rather illogical after the promise of hard
work, unless is addressed to someone wihtout the group to which
"we" refers...

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

David said "Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack off.".

Both the quoted and quoting sentences shall have their terminating punctuation. No comma is logically required after `said' because
David's utternace is its direct object.

I was always taught to put a comma after the "said," and to put the ending period inside the quotes, like this:

David said, "Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack off."

Maybe someone who is better at grammar should take a go at it. :)

Mike


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Mike Powell - ANTON SHEPELEV:

David said "Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack
off.".

Both the quoted and quoting sentences shall have their
terminating punctuation. No comma is logically required after
`said' because David's utternace is its direct object.

I was always taught to put a comma after the "said," and to put
the ending period inside the quotes, like this:

David said, "Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack off."

Maybe someone who is better at grammar should take a go at it. :)

You were taught right, Mike. I only wrote that this traditional
punctuation is beautiful yet very illogical. And sometimes
beautiful is preferrable.

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

You were taught right, Mike. I only wrote that this traditional
punctuation is beautiful yet very illogical. And sometimes
beautiful is preferrable.

LOL, no doubt. Like a lot of things in our grammar, the punctuation is
also illogical at times.

Take Care!
Mike


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Hi, Mike! Recently you wrote in a message to Denis Mosko:

David said, "Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack off".

David said, 'Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack off'.

See how silly the second one is, using the same punctuation mark
for the missing letter in don't as for what David spoke?

I do not think that the second one is correct for how one would
normally punctuate that sentence in English. We would normally
use the double-quote as in the first example.

North Americans tend to prefer double quotation marks whereas those
from the UK & other parts of the British Commonwealth don't. Denis has a point
in that our keyboards & Fidonet software make no distinction between the single
quotation mark & the apostrophe. Readers who are learning English as a foreign
language may find this confusing. But as a Canadian with an ex-Brit background
I accept whichever way others do it because I'm quite used to seeing both. :-)

We would also put the period at the end inside of the
second double-quote mark.

And re this example the order would be the same in US & UK English.




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