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Subject:Punctuation problem From:Greg Kushmerek <gkushmer -at- JADE -dot- TUFTS -dot- EDU> Date:Fri, 7 May 1993 15:03:20 EDT
I've got myself a little argument with a software engineer about punctuation.
It concerns the double quote and end punctuation in a sentence. While it
makes sense that a semi-colon follows a double quote at the end of a
quotation, it doesn't make sense that a period falls within a double
quote.
Now, all I can say is "That's just the rule." But he's looking
for something more or else he'd write: "That's a stupid rule.".
In defense of this punctuation, he says:
>The state diagram for the second sentence is as follows:
>(start sentence (start quote - end quote) - end sentence)
>Even though this looks foolish, logically it makes sense. I know that
>the English "language" does not follow rules of logic, yet it would
>be equally foolish to require the punctuation to _always_ fall within
>the closing double quote.
