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Punctuation

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PhilK
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#1 | Posted: 13 Jan 2018 12:28
Goodgulf:
* - the search and replace? period quotation mark space replaced by comma quotation mark space. I will maintain to my dying day that
"I said this." Ted said.
is correct and
"I said this," Ted said.
isn't, because "I said this." is a complete sentence that ends in a period. The admins here disagree, so I do that search and replace before submitting each story.

(I've quoted this from Goodgulf's post on the 'Burgundy' thread, since it seemed more sensible to locate it to a new discussion.)

I think we've debated this before, GG - but as far as I can see the weight of usage is solidly against you. I just took down from my shelves, largely at random, novels by seven well-known writers, British, American and Australian, living and dead: EM Forster, Thomas Pynchon, John Steinbeck, Graham Greene, Peter Carey, Saul Bellow and Edith Wharton. Not one of them uses the punctuation you maintain - 'to your dying day' - is correct.

I won't hold you to seven - but can you name me one well-respected English-language author who follows your formula?

PhilK
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#2 | Posted: 13 Jan 2018 12:39
Apologies, GG - in deference to your nationality, I should have checked out a Canadian author as well. So: Margaret Atwood. Same result.

TheEnglishMaster
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#3 | Posted: 13 Jan 2018 13:53
The exam boards who dispense my students' grades would mark them down for placing a full stop rather than a comma where you suggest, GG. 'Ted said' is assumed to be part of the same sentence as the direct speech preceding it, and PhilK's impressively tasty selection of major novelists would suggest this has been the consensus across time and cultures.

There is also a problem leaving 'Ted said' as a stand-alone sentence because the verb 'say' is transitive: in isolation, it would elicit a puzzled, "Ted said what?" and the smoother alternative 'said Ted' would be even weirder as a sentence.

I hope there are many years remaining, GG, for you to re-consider your take on this important issue, but I will meanwhile defend to the death your right to disagree.

Goodgulf
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#4 | Posted: 13 Jan 2018 20:15
I would point out that English is a decentralized, non-codified language. French (as spoken in France) has a central board that decides what is and what is not correct French. That is why they still have the equivalent of their versions of "thee and thou" and why it took them years to come up with a French term for space shuttle while the boys at NASA took almost no time at all to name it.

Punctuation is a relatively modern thing - mostly invented by printers. That's why there's the debate over the double space after a period - it worked so much better with certain typefaces. An interesting book on this topic is "Eats, shoots, and leaves" - which goes into the history of the subject. And don't get me started on the interabang - which is such a useful but neglected part of punctuation. It's been in and out of use since 1962, mostly in ads and comics, but it is so useful.. Sentences such as
"You really want me to spank you ‽ "
really cry out for that combination of ? and ! .

Lacking a central authority beyond things such as the Little Brown Book (which is neither little nor brown) or various style guides, I will continue to maintain that
"You want a spanking." Frank told her.
is as correct as
"You want a spanking?" Frank asked her
or
"You want a spanking!" Frank exclaimed.

Otherwise
"You want a spanking,"
would be correct for all three, with the punctuation implied by "told her", "asked her", or "exclaimed".

Yes, I realise that I am part a very, very, very small minority here, but as I said there is no central authority for the language, meaning that "correct" English shifts usage patterns shift. If enough people join me on this we can change the world, much like how "literally" stopped meaning "literally". Will this ever reach the level of the Oxford Comma debate? Probably not, but let's face it - with the way English is shifting now the gr8 debates are moving to how to incorporate text speech.

Here's a link to how the current English debates are going, and they have little to do with the historic ones. And yes, the article's title is "OMG! Txts make u gd at writing? Srsly?"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2241325/OMG-Txts-make-u-gd-writing-Srsly-How- text-speak-help-pupils-write-essays.html#ixzz5465k7ExX

PhilK
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#5 | Posted: 13 Jan 2018 22:00
Goodgulf:
French (as spoken in France) has a central board that decides what is and what is not correct French. That is why they still have the equivalent of their versions of "thee and thou"

As do German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Greek, etc, etc. Do all these languages also have a 'central board'?

Also note there are parts of Britain where 'thee' and 'thou' (or derivatives like 'tha') are still in common colloquial use. Presumably this is on account of the Central Board of Yorkshire, or wherever?

Goodgulf:
Yes, I realise that I am part a very, very, very small minority here, but as I said there is no central authority for the language, meaning that "correct" English shifts usage patterns shift.

Exactly. English grammar, syntax, punctuation, etc, are ruled by usage. The punctuation usage in the case under discussion is 99.99999999999999999999999999% in favour of a comma. The 0.00000000000000000000000001%, it would seem, is you. But as I said, if you can find me just one reputable English-language author who thinks otherwise, I'll concede that you may have a point.

Tiredny
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USA
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#6 | Posted: 14 Jan 2018 00:36
"You want a spanking." Frank told her.
is as correct as

"You want a spanking?" Frank asked her
or
"You want a spanking!" Frank exclaimed.


Further confusing your arguments, Goodgulf (BTW shouldn't that be Goodgolf?), are the following structures I come across all too often:

"You want a spanking?," Frank asked her.

"You want a spanking!," Frank exclaimed.

It seems that some folks want those commas even with ?'s and !'s.

Regards,
Tired

Goodgulf
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#7 | Posted: 14 Jan 2018 05:10
PhilK:
xactly. English grammar, syntax, punctuation, etc, are ruled by usage.

Which means the "rules" aren't rules - and subject to change. Mainstream English has ditched the thee's and thou's and is waging a relentless war on irregular verbs. Many people will write "Shitted" rather than "shat" and so on.

Nor is the Oxford Comma "mainstream" - but it's worth a fight.

And yes, my prefer syntax might not be the common one, but it within the scope of what those early printers did when they were inventing their style books. I will also point out that different "style books" handle everything from capitalization to preferred spellings differently, there are areas where they contradict each other, and yet refers to itself as the standard for its field.

Tiredny:
"You want a spanking?," Frank asked her.

"You want a spanking!," Frank exclaimed.

I thankfully have never seen that, and hope that those commas were automatically inserted by the program they were using. Much like how I must be careful not to leave trailing spaces at the end of my quotes else I see:
"The car is in the driveway," Tom said. "I think it is time I left,"

PhilK
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#8 | Posted: 14 Jan 2018 11:12
So if there aren't any rules, GG, what becomes of your initial assertion that

Goodgulf:
I will maintain to my dying day that
"I said this." Ted said.
is correct and
"I said this," Ted said.
isn't,

- or is this a further example of your infinitely flexible usage, at once both correct and incorrect?

Goodgulf
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#9 | Posted: 14 Jan 2018 17:34
I don't really come here for the debates. Let's just agree that I'm right and you're wrong and move on

On a more serious note, why are there so many style guides for the UK, each being a different "this is how you should write" guides - ones that often contradict each other? There are the:
Copy-editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers; Fowler's Modern English Usage; The King's English; The Oxford Style Manual; The Complete Plain Words; Usage and Abusage; Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA); The BBC News Style Guide: by the British Broadcasting Corporation; The Economist Style Guide; The Guardian Style Guide; The Times Style and Usage Guide, by The Times; Acorn Technical Publications Style Guide; and the RISC OS Style Guide.

Note that these are in addition to (and possible superseding) the 15 ISO style guides - and that none of these British guides are considered acceptable for American English. Nor do any of them meet all the standards in the GLAAD Media Reference Guide, which is a style guide that encourages "media outlets to use language and practices inclusive of LGBT".

The GLAAD Media Reference Guide is merely one example of someone (or a group of someones) who wishes to change the way the majority of the people in the world use the English language. My fight for the PROPER use of a period (not a comma) at the end of a complete sentence is another example of this. Yes, I accept that more people will be using the word "cis" than will do the correct thing and end a sentence with a period, but I will fight the good fight.

PhilK
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#10 | Posted: 14 Jan 2018 18:22
Goodgulf:
On a more serious note, why are there so many style guides for the UK,

Perhaps to help poor bemused Canadians who keep having problems getting their punctuation right....

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