There was a thread on alt.folklore.computers on this very topic (does that make
this
on-topic? No, just two similar threads from two similar forums that are/were
off-topic. But I digress).
I agree, punctuation inside quotes IS ugly, but it does seem to be the "rule."
I
wasn't sure
about the root of that rule, so thanks for pointing it out.
Kind of reminds me of the use of Kelvin vs. degrees kelvin.
Eric
Sellam Ismail wrote:
On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, r. 'bear' stricklin
wrote:
Even the American English "rule" of
placing all punctuation inside
quotation marks is a _typographical convention_ that stems from the
early days of movable type, when the period and comma were the most
fragile pieces of type and were prone to breaking off in the press.
OK, this is interesting. I always thought that it was both aesthetically
ugly and illogical to place punctuation marks inside quotes. The belong
on the outside, unless it belongs to the quote itself.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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