Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 32

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Use of second person ("you", "your")

Throughout my time on Wikipedia, I've edited pages about games (video games, board games, sports, etc.) when they reffer to the player (sometimes observer) as "you." Essentailly reffering to the reader as if (s)he is in that situation directly. Then one day, I check the Manual of Style, and find that it doesn't list this guideline. I have inquired this in the help desk (now archived here). Essays, research reports, and paper encyclopedias discourage addressing the reader by using "you" or "your." I would like to see this added into the Manual of Style. I would add it myself, but I don't know where to put it, or if I am allowed to do so.

Alredy some users (including me) make these edits dispite the lack of an explicit policy. In most cases we changed the word "you" into either the word "player" or the player's position title (i.e. short stop, goalkeeper, quarterback), if aplicable. Or in videogames, the player character's name (if named). However, if the 2nd person reference was used in quotation, then it is left alone.

A few examples:

"You jump, and hit a block with your head and a super mushroom would emerge and you can power up."
"Mario jumps, and hits a block with his head and a super mushroom would emerge and he can power up."


"If you let the ball get through and into your goal, then your opponents get a point."
"If the goalkeeper lets the ball get through and into the goal, then the opposing team get a point."


"When you go past "GO," then you collect $200."
"When a player moves past "GO," then that player collects $200."


You must find your weapon if you want to defeat them.
Is left alone, because it is quoted text.


So, should this guideline (albeit a more revised and elaborate virsion) be added into the manual? -- — Kjammer ⌂ 08:59, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Do people disagree with your edits? It seems like this merely falls into the rules of formal written english, which is explicitly preferred in wikipedia. We try not to add things to the MoS if there's no disagreement about the preferred style. --Chuck 15:13, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
"Rules of formal written English" is optimistic, since those rules surely vary, and it seems clear many editors have no idea what they might be. I'm not arguing for instruction creep, but this is how and why "house styles" evolve. For example, I cringe when I see the word "ditto" used in formal writing; is it wrong, a matter of continent, a matter of taste, …? --KSmrqT 01:00, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree that second person should not be used. This includes the implied second person using the imperative. This is part of why I think traditionally-written recipes are inappropriate for inclusion at Wikipedia. Also, many people (including myself) find second-person writing to be unnerving and creepy-sounding. On the other hand, overuse of the nonspecific "one" can sound overly stilted. Recastings in the style of Kjammer's examples are ideal. I would agree with adding a section to the MoS explicitly spelling this out; however, I wouldn't outright ban use of second person, just strongly recommend against it unless there is a compelling reason. --Nohat 16:48, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
Agree with Nohat, exactly, if I said what I thought I'd be repeating his words.
The manual of style is meant to include everythign where there is a preferable way (or a chosen way for consistency), not to exclude things where most people follow something (unless it's something like capitalise the first letter of a sentence of course). --Neonumbers 07:23, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
A complete ban would neither be practical nor desirable as you can't foresee all circumstances that may arise and good writing always should take precedence over any "rule" such as this. As the MOS does not need to say what you are proposing, let's not have instruction creep. --jguk 07:05, 7 October 2005 (UTC)


Use of second person represents a factual omission

I am happy to see that someone else has brought up this subject. I agree with Kjammer that too many articles use the words "you" or "your" inappropriately; when I read them I am always left with a feeling that they are somehow unprofessional. But I agree that banning these words based on the fact that they give us a bad feeling is a weak argument. I also agree with jguk that making a rule to quash this kind of writing is difficult. So with further thinking I've come up with what I believe is ultimately a strong argument as to why this topic should make it into the manual:

"Often when an author resorts to using the words you or your in an article, he or she is actually making a factual omission of the true subject of the sentence.

Examine Kjammer's examples. In every case the corrected version fixes the problem by reintroducing the missing subject.

  • you -> Mario
  • you -> the goalkeeper
  • your opponents -> the opposing team

It is this factual omission that needs to be corrected, and because this topic is an easy way to alert authors about the problem, I think it should be included. --Ke6jjj 23:26, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

That's a fair point — I never thought of it that way, I just knew that it somehow looked stylistically wrong.
Of course, this must be applied with elasticity, as the quote at the beginning of the manual states, but this is no different from any other rule and in almost all cases is appropriate, and hence is worthy of inclusion.
And, if an editor does write some text in the second person, that's no big deal, because someone else can always come along and change it. And then no-one will revert that someone else, because they made a change for the better. Right? (Point: editors are not expected to know the guidelines — just not to revert them where conforming changes were appropriate.) So we shouldn't worry about editors not knowing or not wanting to go out of their way to apply it.
But, if you think that its unprofessionalism is a weak reason to ban it, well I disagree but that judgement can only be made subjectively. Nevertheless, remember that this is an encyclopedia and is expected to have a certain degree of professionalism to it, however maintained. Neonumbers 09:56, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Addition to Manual?

It seems to me that everyone supports the general gist of this guideline, for whatever reason, except jguk who wishes to avoid instruction creep and Chuck who sees it as being part of good English anyway. (Correct me if I'm wrong. Five other contributors have signalled a support.

For I carry on with the whole consensus and proposal thing, I want to point out first that this would not be a complete ban and that in instances where it needs to be used, it can be used — but in most (in fact, almost all) cases, it will probably apply. It is, after all, just a guideline; editors will never be reprimanded for not adhering to it and if an article is out of line, someone will come and patch it up.

Also, I want to note that the rules of good English are debatable — just look at this page and its archives — so I'm a bit sceptical about most users taking it for granted.

But anyway, that aside, it would be worth deciding on a good wording for the addition. Do we point out that it is a factual omission, or just that it is considered poor encyclopedic style? Or should we say both? Is it necessary to include a word like "generally" to avoid misinterpretations of it being an outright ban? What section does it get added to?

Here's something to get started with:

Use of the second person ("you") is generally discouraged. Instead, refer to the subject of the sentence, for example:

  • "When a player moves past "GO," that player collects $200."
  • Not: "When you move past "GO," you collect $200."

This does not apply to quoted text, which should be quoted exactly.

If we want to say why, "to specify who the sentence refers to" could be added before "for example" (its being bad style is kind of given, I think, that's why it's here in the first place!). Any suggested changes? Neonumbers 23:17, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'm also happy with this being in the manual. As rationale, I would point out both reasons. Until we can't think of any exceptions, other than quoting, I can't see why it shouldn't be an outright ban. As for where to put it, I suggest right after "Avoid self-referential pronouns". PizzaMargherita 07:58, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
I concur that the suggested section should be added to the Manual of Style, for the reasons given by user Ke6jjj and everyone else. --Coolcaesar 15:14, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

How about keeping this topic a little more general? A short note about encyclopedic tone and register may be useful, with a few points including don't refer to the reader in the second person "you". Also, I'd prefer to use an example that is more academic; I think gaming and popular culture articles should be about the subject, and we shouldn't encourage editors too far into the subject, if you know what I mean. —Michael Z. 2005-11-18 16:02 Z

Any example will do, feel free to provide one that'll work better. Wording, too, is open to proposals; no-one seems to be complaining about the gist of it.  :-) Neonumbers 10:07, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Use of the second person ("you") is generally discouraged. This is to keep an encyclopedic tone, and also to help clarify the sentence. Instead, refer to the subject of the sentence, for example:

  • "When a player moves past "GO," that player collects $200."
  • Not: "When you move past "GO," you collect $200."

This does not apply to quoted text, which should be quoted exactly.

I've just added that sentence. I haven't replaced the example because I've nothing to replace it with. Looking over this thread, it seems to me as if there is general support (i.e. consensus) for the addition; hence if there are no objections before 30 November 2005 I will add this to the manual. Neonumbers 06:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Section has been added to the "Usage and spelling" section. The "self-referential pronouns" section has been moved there too (this was not a guideline change and I felt it belonged there). Neonumbers 09:45, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Using commas and periods with Quotations, Song Titles, Article Titles, including in a Series

I have recently noticed a British contributor going on a punctuation crusade through articles, including some I have edited and researched, to change all commas or periods placed inside quotation marks to be outside the quotation marks. He cites "logical quotation" and points to our Manual of Style: Quotation as though that is an authority on the subject of punctuating a sentence listing several song titles, as in the sentence he changed. (I wish he had been as interested in content research, but some people mostly care about going in to articles just to change the locations of commas. At least his fixation on this topic has brought it to my attention so I can ask here about it.)

Please explain how "logical quoting" relates to a list of song titles that are punctuated with quotation marks. I understand a quotation to be something different from a list of song titles that use quotation marks for punctuation. Listing four song titles in a sentence and placing the commas outside the quotation marks punctuating the song titles makes the resulting changed text appear to my eyes like some sort of programming language, rather than English. My reaction may be caused by my eyes becoming used to American editing style manuals from my work outside Wikipedia for the past 20 years. Trying to edit differently here than I do elsewhere, as though Wikipedia began as a British publication (which it did not), is going to become confusing for me.

I'm also trying to understand if Wikipedia style has settled without dispute on using British logical quoting for quotations, when that happened, and why British style should dominate Wikipedia. (I had visited the style manual many times before and did not notice this before.) No American style guide that I know of used by professional editors adopts the placing of commas and periods outside quotation marks. Here is the only archive I've found so far of Wikipedia discussions on the subject, merely noting a small handful of contributor attitudes on the subject: Quotes talk archive. I didn't find that discussion to have clearly come to a conclusion.

I want to get everything straight about what's correct form so that I can be consistent, correct any errors I have made myself, and so that I won't, worse yet, accidentally mis-edit someone else's work in the future. Until now, I had been adhering to styles I thought Wikipedia's style guide was based on (particularly for References citation style), such as Chicago Manual of Style, APA, and AP. I had thought at one point in the past some part of the Wikipedia style guide had said to use American style on American topics and British style on British topics, but I now doubt that memory was true (or it might have been in a citation style discussion, but I don't remember). Once I'm clear on how to handle this in the future, I will consistently apply whatever is the approved style to use, assuming it doesn't keep changing. --Emerman 18:14, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The logical quoting style is preferred because it preserves exactly what is quoted; there is no ambiguity as to whether the punctuation is as in the original. This does tend to be pretty consistantly followed, even in AE style articles by editors from the U.S., as I am. --Jonathunder 18:43, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
No, it is not "preferred" in the U.S. On the contrary, I just listed for you a number of style manuals commonly followed, including in arts and entertainment fields if that is what you mean by "AE style," that don't put commas outside the quotation marks, so it couldn't be "consistently" followed in the United States. As for arts and entertainment, a simple look at any and all articles in All Music Guide (allmusic.com — random example: [1]) and Rolling Stone magazine (rollingstone.com — random example of song titles with commas/periods inside quote marks: [2] and [3]) reveals they follow Associated Press style, not "logical quotation" style for song titles in a series or for quotations, for that matter. Please provide specific and precise examples of other U.S. publications that place commas and periods inside quotation marks, particularly with song titles as in the case of the UK person who erroneously adjusted an article I worked on, if you are going to make claims of that nature in the future without citing your sources.
I continue to hope someone will explain the relationship of "logical quoting" style to a series of song titles separated by commas and using quotation marks, which is what led me to write this question, rather than have this part of the question be confused with punctuation of a quoted passage. A series of song titles listed in a sentence is not a "quotation." (Was the immediately preceding sentence supposed to end with the period outside the quotation marks in "logical quotation" style, by the way? Same with the comma I put with the phrase "AE style" in the above paragraph? Changing either to have the punctuation outside the quote mark would be awkward looking.) Why did a person changing the commas in a Wikipedia article I'd written separating song titles with commas refer to his edit as "logical quoting"? There is nothing being "quoted" in the case of a series of song titles punctuated with quotation marks. Also, as to your quotation logic comment, I have never had any ambiguity about when to use the comma or period inside a quotation; it is simply not an issue. The logical quoting style tries to make it an issue, but it is not one necessary to consider if you simply always put the period or comma inside the quotation. Whether the punctuation was in the original or not is irrelevant. --Emerman 19:45, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
My comment above is in the context of Wikipedia, where logical quoting does tend to be the general practice and has been for a long time, even for Wikipedia articles in AE style. I think this reflects the influence of computer culture, where, due to the importance of giving a string of text literally, this has become more common, even in the U.S. --Jonathunder 20:15, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. Could you please clarify if you mean "arts and entertainment" by your use of the term "AE"? Yes, I did mention the style looked like a programming language rather than English, re: your comment about computer culture. I have not been using the logical quote style you mention as being widespread in Wikipedia in my editing. I notice it in some articles but didn't think it was widespread in Wikipedia. I think it looks horrible. It makes perfect sense in computer text strings though. My work background includes both technical editing and journalism, by the way, so I'm familiar with computer and internet-oriented styles too. The journals and magazines I read online are not using the style someone has convinced people is fine for Wikipedia. I don't understand how this happened; you seem to indicate it's a techie trend, perhaps among bloggers, but it's not the trend in online magazines. --Emerman 21:01, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
I think Jonathunder's explanation is probably more-or-less correct. Most Britishisms make me cringe and it takes a good deal of willpower not to correct them, but for whatever reason "logical quoting" seems perfectly natural and correct to me, and that sentiment seems to be fairly widespread on Wikipedia. This is in fact one of the oldest parts of the MoS and it has rarely been questioned. For your particular example, anything that appears in quote marks is ipso facto a quotation, so the rule applies to them. The following has standard Wikipedia punctuation for a sentence containing a list of song titles:
"Some of Burt Bacharach's most famous songs are "The Look Of Love", "(They Long To Be) Close To You", "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head", and "I Say A Little Prayer"."
--Nohat 20:39, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
I appreciate your reply. Yet I find that example looks horrid. The fact someone got their opinion to scoot past everyone, not considering other style guides, doesn't mean it ought to necessarily stay that way, hence this talk page. You're indicating it's an old style here, but a year ago, I did not think that was in the style guide or else I just missed it. Now I've got a year of editing one way behind me that I have to go back and change in edits under this name and my IPs, if I'm to assume all my edits using common American style book style were wrong. --Emerman 21:01, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, I went to a British arts and entertainment publication, NME, to see their way of doing this, although "AE" isn't the issue here — I come from a tech writer background, not just an AE background and am interested in editing other topics than music sometimes. NME appears to use this style you mention (example: third sentence of [4] and third to last sentence of [5], although they use single quote marks and the standard is double quote marks for song titles — I wonder why they used single ones?). If "logical quotation" style is definitively what I'm always supposed to do, and I'm always supposed to put commas and periods outside song titles, then I'll try to go back and correct my past mistakes in the future. Will use double quotation marks for signifying a song title or article title unless I learn even that old punctuation rule has changed. --Emerman 21:35, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
I think it's not that someone scooted their opinion past anyone— it's just that probably the majority of people on Wikipedia so far who care about the issue agree with the style. This is the first time I've seen it questioned. I don't mean to deflate your balloon too much and I'm sorry you think this style looks "horrid", but I think this style is pretty universally well-liked on Wikipedia, even by anti-consistency chaos hawks such as myself.
However, given that, you have no obligation to go back and fix your previous edits. You are of course welcomed and encouraged to, but you should definitely not feel like you have to. You should contribute in whatever way brings you the most pleasure. If "fixing" punctuation to a format that you don't personally like that much is something that doesn't interest you, you should definitely work on something else instead. Someone else will fix it. On the other hand, if the thought that there is content you contributed that violates the MoS makes your stomach churn and you won't be able to sleep until it's fixed, then I guess you'll have to fix it. In that case, however, you have no one to blame the unpleasantness on other than yourself for being an anally-retentive perfectionist. :-) You can, however, take solace in the fact that much of the rest of us are the same.
One could research in the history how long it's been in the Manual of Style, but I know for certain it's been there as long as I've been editing Wikipedia articles (mid-2003) because it was one of the first things I looked up. You must have overlooked it before. --Nohat 21:44, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
It was there for a long time, then it disappeared around New Year's (between 2004 and 2005) and then was reinserted in March 2005. The problem is that a lot of contributors (myself included) who started editing Wikipedia during the winter of 2004 were not aware of that crazy rule since it was not in the MoS during that period. See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive12 for more information about the debate that resulted. Furthermore, I continue to disagree with the rule in its current state as an insane compromise that satisfies no one. I personally use American English punctuation when editing pages that are purely or almost completely about American subjects (especially American law, where proper punctuation is extremely important). Of course, as a matter of basic courtesy, when editing pages about topics that are not specific to the United States, I do preserve the British usage when I come across it.
Furthermore, I should point out that if you review the English language article, you will notice that American English speakers currently constitute a supermajority (two-thirds) of all native English speakers. --Coolcaesar 01:47, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
The "logical quote style" means that punctation goes inside the quotation marks if and only if it is part of the content being quoted. In the case of a song title, if a comma is part of a song title, it goes inside the quote marks, otherwise it does not. I have long (for years before the creation of wikipedia) used this style exclusively in my writing, adn i live and have always lived in the US. Therfore would write a list of song titles as (for example "Raindrops keep Falling on my Head", "Yesterday", "When I'm in Town, I call on You", "Reaching Out...", and "Only You". This makes it clear which punctuation is and which is not part of the title. I understand this to be the agreed and most commonly used style on wikipedia. It would have been my choice had I been polled on the issue. --DES (talk) 02:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Since you mention American law, Coolcaesar--can you cite any bill-drafting style guide, for the U.S. Congress or any state legislature, which does not follow the "logical" formatting? The bills I've seen, and a couple of bill-drafting guides I've seen, are pretty much like the Wikipedia rules. Gene Nygaard 08:23, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
California, for example. If you look up California Civil Code Section 1749.60 [6], or any other code section that happens to put quote marks around something (like Financial Code section 23000), you will notice that the California Legislature consistently puts periods and commas inside quotation marks. As for judge-made law, both the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court continue to adhere to the American convention of placing periods and commas inside quotation marks. I just pulled slip opinions from both courts' Web sites to be absolutely sure (Powerine Oil Co. v. Superior Court, decided 8/29/05 by Cal., and IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez., decided 11/8/05 by U.S.). Also, the American style is the style implicitly prescribed by the Bluebook, as indicated by the examples for Rules 5.1 and 5.2. --Coolcaesar 03:11, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
You are missing the point completely. I'm not talking about the laws; I'm talking about bills. That's where they say we're going to amend the existing law which says "such and such", and replace that wording with something else saying "this and that". In those bills, punctuation is inside the quotation marks if the punction is contained in the original or replacement language; it is outside the quotation marks if it is not. No strange, illogical rules always placing periods and the like inside quotation marks. Gene Nygaard 05:59, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
If you had bothered to look at the California Legislative Info site [7], you would realize that California bills never indicate what text is being removed by an amendment to an existing code section. They simply state something like "Section 1654 of the Civil Code is amended to read:" and then the new section starts right away on the next line, without any quotation marks preceding or following it. There is no need to indicate the difference between the old and new sections because any lawyer who cares about a bill can look up the current version on LexisNexis or in the law library, and compare it to the new version proposed by the bill.
When West or LexisNexis modifies their annotated versions of the California Codes (West's California Codes Annotated or Deering's Annotated California Codes) after the Governor signs the bill, they will add in a note saying that the 2005 amendment deleted or added specific phrases (and these notations are always punctuated in American style).
Even where bills themselves are amended during the committee process, quotation marks are not used. Rather, the deleted text is indicated with strikethroughs and the inserted text is indicated in italics. This has always been the tradition in the printed versions published by the Legislature, and has been continued on the Legislature's Web site.
In case you're wondering, I did just look up Thomas and the United States Code, and I am now aware that Congress does use logical punctuation in both its bills and the U.S.C. But that's simply one branch of the federal government. Both the judiciary and the executive continue to use traditional American punctuation, respectively, in their opinions and in the Code of Federal Regulations. The Constitution, of course, also uses American punctuation as well — I am referring to the President's oath in Article II.
Finally, I fail to see what the point of your point is, because very few bills are so notable that they need to be parsed phrase by phrase on Wikipedia (especially before they are signed into law).--Coolcaesar 20:17, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that the problem on quote marks is that the technicalities are not understood, and not appreciated as important by the average person (indeed, the fact that there are two systems which can be interpreted as ok by readers suggests that there is not a big issue here). I think that in the history of this, there are two different systems being considered, reported speech and quotations and historically they have different rules, but (like the quotation mark article itself, this subtlety is lost- its just stuff in quotes for the average reader. In my more pedantic moments I'd like to see an authoritative statement on the acedemic view of correct usage, in all dialects, I think there is too much personal experience being thrown into the pot. Anyway, trying to fix a style based on correct usage when that usage is not understood seems a lost cause. Perhaps the pragmatic approach is to state that it is a Wiki style and not based on correct usage due to the differences in usage. --Spenny 11:38, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

There is some truth to that, but i also think you will find that there is no authoritative, academicaly approved style for all dialects of english, any more than there is a fully authoritative single spelling of "color/colour". --DES (talk) 18:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
(smile) I think you should be shot at dawn for suggesting that there is not a correct spelling of colour, just because the upstarts on the other side of the pond choose to spell it differently! Seriously, it is a different case, there are clear, correct spellings, they just differ according to dialect. Punctuation is a different problem, in that its correct usage is not well understood, or perhaps even well defined. In Britain, there has been a popular book, Eats Shoots and Leaves, which attempts to deal with the more glaring issues, though I am not sure it managed to weave its way through the detail of punctuating quotes or the spoken word. So as far as Wiki goes, we know we will be offending some readers with wrong spelling, it is less clear whether our punctuation will cause the same offence. --Spenny 17:07, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Let me see if I have got this straight. Some people are suggesting that instead of writing

Some of Burt Bacharach's most famous songs are "The Look Of Love", "(They Long To Be) Close To You", "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head", and "I Say A Little Prayer".

we should write

Some of Burt Bacharach's most famous songs are "The Look Of Love," "(They Long To Be) Close To You," "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head," and "I Say A Little Prayer."

Is this really what is being said? The second formulation is absurd. Not only is it logically wrong (because the commas are not part of the song title), it looks completely wrong too, with the quotes separated only by spaces. Possibly I have got confused about what is being said. Matt 11:54, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

No, Matt, that's about the size of it and I'll agree with you it does look completely wrong too ... to me ... but I'm biased. The thing is that one can't help but be biased. Emerman says this style is "awkward looking" and that it "looks horrible" but admits that his "reaction may be caused by [his] eyes becoming used to American editing style manuals ..." (P.S. it should be "... eyes' becoming ...").
Well, Emerman, the American style looks awkward and horrible to me so we're even. Yes, a lot of it just depends on what you're used to so raising the point of how it looks isn't going to get either side very far.
Let's therefore examine the merits of the two systems in terms of logic. The American system defies all logic ... and for what? Just to look nicer ... and in my eyes it fails at that but, as I say, this is only a matter of taste. What people are calling the British system makes perfect logical sense and is unambiguous.
Note that I write "What people are calling the British system": its use is not restricted to British English but is pretty much universal (even outside of English). And why should it be universal? Well ain't that obvious? Nobody but the Americans had that daft idea of mucking things up.
Americans would do well, in my opinion, to adopt this logical system of quotation. Its looks can't take that much getting used to. However, I guess that would be hoping for too much. At least here at Wikipedia logic prevails in this respect. Long let it.
Emerman, I understand your desire to have things changed to the style to which you are accustomed but judging from the responses here I don't think this desire is about to be fulfilled. Jimp 9Nov05
<< it should be "... eyes' becoming ..." >> You mean genitive? Wow, I guess you never stop learning... PizzaMargherita 07:35, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I was just being pedantic since we're in a pedantic mood. Another point: I'm Australian but I don't ever recall learning this logical punctuation style at school. In fact I don't think I'd ever been aware of the issue until I read about it at Wikipedia. I've always used logical punctuation simply because it's logical. Never really gave the issue any thought. Now, though, I notice the American style and, as I say, it grates on me like I guess the logical style grates on Emerman.
Emerman, you say you continue to use American style in artilces about US law where "proper punctuation is extremely important." The logical style is not improper. Also it's an article about law, it's not a legal document. That asside wouldn't you think that in articles about law or any topic for that matter unambiguous punctuation would be best? How do law makers in the US get around this ambiguity I wonder. Jimp 11Nov05
You got confused. Emerman didn't raise that point, I did. To respond to Jimp's point: The issue of punctuation is a non-issue for American judges or legislators, because in nearly all cases it's not that important to show in the final text where a certain period or comma came from. There are a few reported contract cases where parties have fought over the meaning of the placement of punctuation, but if I recall correctly, the solution in those cases was to simply quote the entire relevant portion of the contract verbatim as a blockquote (in which case quotation marks are not used because the indentation and context are sufficient to show that the text is a quote from somewhere else). --Coolcaesar 03:11, 11 November 2005 (UTC)