Comments on: PR agents and other Nazis

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 06:25:00 +0000

You are right; one should place the full stop after closing the quotation. Although this rule can get a bit foggy if you're quoting an entire sentence. Bryson's Troublesome Words covers this and, from what I can remember, leaves it to the writer (or their publishing house) to establish a style and apply it consistently.
One should also end sentences which begin "Am I right in thinking..." with a question mark.

By: Gez

Gez — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 22:15:00 +0000

I can see your point, I still think they are unnecessary but concede that they are not incorrect.

On this subject, check out this "blog"

A question: am I right in thinking that when ending a sentence with a quoted phrase (i.e. where the quote itself isn't a complete sentence), one should place the full stop after closing the quotation.

Therefore “sick and evil.” and "shameful." are wrong, aren't they?

P.S. Don't put a comma after "however" when it starts a sentence. That's a tip, kids - write it down.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 20:31:00 +0000

Good stuff.However, I don’t agree that there’s anything wrong with “hiding” “behind” “quotation marks”. If you want to be absolutely clear that you’re quoting and not paraphrasing, I don’t see any problem. I don’t think (in this context) you can insinuate any sort of bias, as long as the quotation marks are applied consistently.If the article had read “However other namby-pamby liberal Big Brother fans have hit back at “racist” blogger’s, labeling them “shameful…”, I would think differently.

By: Paddy

Paddy — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:28:00 +0000

I find the overuse of quotation marks, and also inverted commas, is becoming increasingly common. A few weeks ago I was hanging around in a convalescent home and read a poster advertising a forthcoming social evening that read:

Join us for a Pie and Pea Supper, plus 'Bingo' and 'Karaoke'. All welcome.

Lord knows what will be happening there that night. Not bingo or karaoke but 'Bingo' and 'Karaoke', which presumably differ wildly. It's as if the organisers have added their own special twists to each event, and still wanted to call them bingo and karaoke but felt almost ashamed to misrepresent their social evening, so just threw the inverted commas in as a get-out clause. Probably a wise move actually, as some old miner would probably sue for false advertising, such is our compensation culture these days.