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View Full Version : [Dixonary] OT sort of: I am curious (dealing)


Dodi Schultz
October 23rd, 2006, 10:17 AM
Hi again, John.

You refer to a prior deal of yours:

>> I looked up a word on your definition in several dictionaries before
>> deciding - wrongly as it turned out - what you had meant. In those
>> first dictionaries, your word only existed as an abbreviation.
>> Further research on-line showed that the word existed in its own
>> right.

I sort of remember the occasion, but I can't recall the word.

>> For instance, something like what we call "the Oxford comma" is
>> little used here in the UK except to remove ambiguities...but is, I
>> understand, most usual in the USA, especially in journalism.

That's our "serial comma" (also less known here as the "Oxford comma" or
"Harvard comma"), a subject of disagreement among US usage mavens, but its
use is generally favored by the majority. "Especially in journalism"? Nope,
not so. It varies in journalism and is in fact used LESS in newspapers than
elsewhere. (I don't believe the NY Times, for example, uses it--although
the Associated Press stylebook mandates its use.) The works that are IMO
the preeminent current AmEng guides--Garner's Modern American Usage and the
Chicago Manual of Style--both recommend using it.

>> An example is "The Union flag is red, white, and blue".

Actually, that's one of the few instances in which there's general
agreement that the comma following "white" is best omitted.

>> Another difference between us is where the full-stop goes in that
>> example sentence.

Ah, yes. We go for what is presumably the perceived esthetic superior, you
for what is clearly the logical option. It's not so much where the full
stop (our period) goes as where the quotes go: Here, they always go outside
a period OR a comma, no matter the meaning, while with other punctuation,
we handle the situation just as you do--i.e., placing the quotes inside or
outside (a question mark, a colon, etc.) depending on the different
meanings.

There's also the quotation marks difference: we use doubles basically,
while you use singles (you've used US style above); for quotes within
quotes, we use singles and you use doubles.

--Dodi