Think you feel guilty

[plural]

Imagine how this poor bastard feels

Comments

[campbellconey.livejournal.com]

Is that a real article? Because it is horribly written, and all of the AP style is off.

For example this: "A peanut allergist in Montreal said the case is "very rare and worrisome". Why is that period not inside the quotes?

And also it says something like 'as saying.' at the end of a sentence. a dangling participle in a bbc article? what the heck?

[plural.livejournal.com]

well its from the BBC (and it is on the correct server not a spoofed address) so I'd wager its legit.

[campbellconey.livejournal.com]

that is sad.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sacchi/]

It is. I caught it on NBC the other morning.

[sickboy.livejournal.com]

I'm confused... shouldn't the period be outside of the quotes because it's ending a sentence not the quote?

[campbellconey.livejournal.com]

Nope. Periods ALWAYS go inside of quotation marks. No matter what. You can check that out for yourself in the most recent edition of the Associated Press Stylebook. I'm pretty sure BBC follows AP style-- it's pretty much the industry standard. It's on page 335 of the Perseus 2002 paperback edition.

[sickboy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just looked it up. I'll be damned! I've always screwed that one up. Makes me want to go back and edit everything I've ever written.

[sickboy.livejournal.com]

Oh and thanks by the way!

[campbellconey.livejournal.com]

no thanks required. i was an english major. any chance to talk to someone about punctuation is thrilling to me. :-)

[campbellconey.livejournal.com]

hey check it out the comment below. i was wrong. well, i was right (in terms of american english, and the style guidelines american journalists follow [ap]) but i was wrong about those crazy brits!

i'm sure a week or so later you really care. :-)

[sickboy.livejournal.com]

I definitely care! It's my mission to use the english language as well as I possibly can. Every little bit helps!

Thanks.

[erika]

It's proper British usage to have periods & commas outside of quotation marks.

[campbellconey.livejournal.com]

I stand completely corrected. I was assuming (for unknown reasons) that BBC followed AP style, when they do in fact have their own style guidelines, and they do in fact put quotation marks inside the period.

[campbellconey.livejournal.com]

i stand by the dangling participle though. :-)