A Note on Punctuation

Grammar snobs may have noticed that I sometimes put my punctuation outside of my quote marks: "like this". Which is wrong wrong wrong. Strunk and White would red-pencil me within an inch of my sanity if they were alive.

But here's why I do that: I make my living writing technical documents. Nearly everything we put in a technical document is a variable or some thing that must be completely literal; it must contain no less and no more than what appears between the quotes. So, I've gotten into the habit of always putting the periods, commas, and semicolons outside of quotes. In typical non-technical writing, quotes are employed for much the same reason - the name of a song, scare quotes for being snotty in a flame war, and so on - with the sole exception of the words some one is saying, or actual quotes of dialogue. Since nearly everything except actual quotes (of what someone said) are like a technical term in form, and since the technical term entities in quotes typically do not have punctuation in their own forms by themselves - such as a title on the cover of a book - it's only logical that the punctuation not found in the term should lie outside the quotes. The only place I think punctuation inside quotes makes sense is when you are using punctuation within a quote (a representation of a statement or dialogue) itself. Yes, it's not proper current accepted style, but I think as computers take over, it will be. I'm on that freaking bleeding edge, baby!

That's also sorta the same reason I don't use the word "whom" properly. Languages are living evolving things, especially American English, and there are many dead words and grammar forms. "Whom", except in formal business communication, is at the intersection of dead words and abandoned grammar forms. It's going to be buried right next to "thee".

You heard it here first.