Thread: Article or no article

Originally Posted by Pravit

Oh, I'm flattered! But be a love, dear cousin, and explain to me if the comma must really ALWAYS go inside the quotation marks! I would pull out some old English essays if I could, but I believe I schmeissed them all weg in a bit of jubilee that I finished school. Perhaps when you're listing things that need to go in quotation marks, or the sentence dictates a comma when you're quoting something?

Mind you, I believe that overseas, conventions differ. I myself go by the AP style guide, as I am a proto-journalist. Here is what it has to say on the subject:

*The period and the comma always go within the quotation marks.
*The dash, the semicolon, the question mark and the exclamation point go within the quotation when they apply to the quoted matter only. They go outside when they apply to the whole sentence.

The second bullet point there is a little tricky, but I shall illustrate with a couple of examples.

Correct: Pravit asked, "When does one use a comma?"
Correct: Did Oddo say "fie on proper comma usage"?

Does that make sense?

It does indeed, cousin Lindsay, but what I meant is the comma at the end of the quoted matter, for example "Somebody said something here", "somebody said something else here." Should it be "Somebody said something here," and "somebody said something else here" or is it fine the first way? I think the second way looks a bit odd but I remember being docked for writing it the first way.

In American standard punctuation, the comma goes inside. For example:

Pravit said, "I desire to learn more about punctuation," to which I responded, "I think that is an admirable goal."

Even in such a situation?

The men said "this," "something else," and "that."

Originally Posted by Pravit

Even in such a situation?

The men said "this," "something else," and "that."

The comma always goes inside, yep.

You know, it's a pity we never learned about this or the use of "whom" in English class!

Originally Posted by Линдзи

Originally Posted by Pravit

Even in such a situation?

The men said "this," "something else," and "that."

The comma always goes inside, yep.

Actually this topic is controversial. I even seem to recall that BrE and AmE have it differently. Either way, commas rarely make sense inside quotes, logically.

[quote=bad manners]

Originally Posted by "Линдзи":1nmgkij2

Originally Posted by Pravit

Even in such a situation?

The men said "this," "something else," and "that."

The comma always goes inside, yep.

Actually this topic is controversial. I even seem to recall that BrE and AmE have it differently. Either way, commas rarely make sense inside quotes, logically.[/quote:1nmgkij2]

Yeah, as I said, there's different standards depending on the country. As Pravit and I are both in the US, and Pravit's going to college in the US, I gave him US standard, specifically AP, although most US stylebooks agree on this one. S'all.

[quote=bad manners]

Originally Posted by "Линдзи":3abladuk

Originally Posted by Pravit

Even in such a situation?

The men said "this," "something else," and "that."

The comma always goes inside, yep.

Actually this topic is controversial. I even seem to recall that BrE and AmE have it differently. Either way, commas rarely make sense inside quotes, logically.[/quote:3abladuk]

Mmm, controversial indeed. If memory serves, standard British usage has always been to place commas outside quotation marks when they do not constitute part of the quotation itself. No doubt because this method is one into which I was indoctrinated at school, any other usage would strike me as odd. Or, at least, I always thought it would.

However, from today's Guardian:

"I hope this is a lesson to advertising agencies and multinationals that they can unwittingly offend black Britons. In this case they paid scant regard to our concerns when we first contacted them," he added.

"I am happy to inform the nation that the president has invited me to form the next government," Mr Singh told reporters as he left the meeting.

I have never noticed this before.

(The French, by the way, stick to their Old World guns. From Le Monde:

[i]Le vice-ministre de la d

Well, I knew from various novels that if someone is talking, then it looks like this:
"That's terrible," he said.

But I thought that if you're listing several things in quotation marks it would make more sense to put the comma outside. Oh well.

For a totally different reason. When quoting direct speech, you don't just throw in a comma, you replace a period with a comma because a period would really look awkward inside a sentence:

Somebody says: "it was terrible." (Observe the period -- end of sentence in general, end of the sentence in the direct speech).
Somebody says: "it was terrible!"
"It was terrible," somebody says. (You can't have a period in there, can you?)
"It was terrible!" somebody says. (Exclamation is not changed.)

Originally Posted by Pravit

Well, I knew from various novels that if someone is talking, then it looks like this:
"That's terrible," he said.

But I thought that if you're listing several things in quotation marks it would make more sense to put the comma outside. Oh well.

It probably would make more sense, yes. However, punctuation is a capricious mistress. There may be a good reason for it; if I find it out, I'll let you know.

Also, now were on the subject of controversial grammatical issues: the conjunctive/subjunctive in English. In what cases is it used? In the same cases as in French (desire, hypothetical etc.)? I know it's correct to say 'I demanded that he be punished', but for some reason 'I asked that he be punished' looks silly. Any thoughts?

It doesn't have anything to do with grammar, I think, it just sounds silly, because if you're in the position to punish somebody, you're not going to ask for him to be punished. You're going to demand it, dammit!

However, say if there was a murder, the family of the murdered victim could "ask" that the murderer be punished somehow. I also think that if there is a brother and a sister, and the brother does something mean, the sister can "ask" the parents for the brother to be punished.

Ok, stupid example. But in some cases, even if it makes sense, I think the sunjunctive is extremely ugly. Real examples, not written by me:

She was concerced that we not be brought up as "cheap" Irish.
He was determined that the film be authentic.
I think it is very critical that Bill Bradley address those issues.
I must emphasize the extreme sensitivity of this information and that it not leave this room.

Ugly, ugly, ugly. Illiterate, even. Especially the last, when the subjunctive is so far removed from the verb governing it, you forget it was there at all.

Mr. joysof and Lindzi, our resident authorities on British resp. American grammar, could you tell me whether those are plain wrong, right but unnatural, or perfectly normal?

For the record, I do understand the concept of the subjunctive. I'm only asking if it really is used in the cases shown above.

Neglect the subjunctive? Heaven forbid!

All of your examples, ugly though you may find them, are entirely acceptable as far as I am concerned. There is, however, another divergence here between American and British English as far as usage patterns are concerned: I, a callow sort-of-Englisher, would tend to shove in a 'should' ('She was concerned that we should not be brought up as "cheap" Irish'; 'I must emphasize the extreme sensitivity of this information and that it should not leave this room.'), meaning, technically speaking, that the subjunctive element of the verb would fall by the wayside; as I remember, the US tendency is reflected by your examples as they stand. If so, this would, in fact, appear to be an instance in which the brash colonials are more faithful to the former style than their staid old cousins.

Ah, see, I thought there may be a difference between UK/US usage. I also subconciously added 'should'. Thank you.

Originally Posted by Jasper May

She was concerced that we not be brought up as "cheap" Irish.
He was determined that the film be authentic.
I think it is very critical that Bill Bradley address those issues.
I must emphasize the extreme sensitivity of this information and that it not leave this room.

The last two sound odd. In speech, almost everyone would just say "addresses" - no Lindzi, joysof, I don't want an explanation of why that's wrong; I know fine well, but it sounds better. In the last one it can be made natural with a "must." This keeps the meaning better than "should."

@Lindzi in regards to commas: Of course, if one is writing something important, then it would be better if commas were used correctly, but I honestly don't think anyone (except you professional pedants!) would notice if I wrote:

"I am the king here, it is my choice whether or not you die."

Originally Posted by Oddo

Originally Posted by Jasper May

She was concerced that we not be brought up as "cheap" Irish.
He was determined that the film be authentic.
I think it is very critical that Bill Bradley address those issues.
I must emphasize the extreme sensitivity of this information and that it not leave this room.

The last two sound odd. In speech, almost everyone would just say "addresses" - no Lindzi, joysof, I don't want an explanation of why that's wrong; I know fine well, but it sounds better. In the last one it can be made natural with a "must." This keeps the meaning better than "should."

Bizarre. Just bizarre. Throughout this thread, contributors - you apart - have done their best to approach the issue as sensibly and empirically as possible, regardless of rights, wrongs and the differences they may have: Линдзи has cited the AP style-guide; I've given you Le Monde, USAToday and Lord Chesterfield, for Christ's sake; others have made their contributions/asked questions when they have seen fit. And what have we had from you? ‘Sounds odd…my language...robots…pedants’ and other dark mutterings which do you no credit whatsoever. Nobody, Oddo, has a divine right to win an argument, but you have done absolutely nothing to make your case beyond saying what you think and saying it in a way which has often bordered on the insulting. When I talk about intellectual maturity and your lack of it, this is what I mean.

Firstly, may I say that you are being insulting yourself there, IMO. I am just sticking up for the way people actually speak in my experience. I could write a long post on this, but to be honest, I know it's not worth it. You'll just say it's refusal to bow to "logic" which you have shown me, which incidentally, as I check through your posts again seems distinctly lacking. Also, unlike you have suggested "sounding odd" is important. It is a perfectly reasonable point, which I'm sure a foreigner wants to know about, as this is what marks their speech as different.

Your post was unwelcome, as you can tell from my previous post. And, as I'm sure you realise, I will not take it at all seriously, it's the same recycled arguments as before. Repetition will not persuade me.

My arguments may or may not "do me no credit." Do you really think I care what you think about them? I'm just saying how people around me speak. I don't think I need to offer more proof than my opinion - after all that is all i am gving here. Anyone can judge for themself. My proof is simply the flag next to my name.