My Pedantry Will Not be Stopped

topic posted Thu, March 25, 2004 - 4:53 PM by  offlineStarchy
I just picked up a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style.

Yes. Oh yes.
posted by:
Starchy
SF Bay Area
  • Re: My Pedantry Will Not be Stopped

    Thu, March 25, 2004 - 10:10 PM
    That's not pedantry, just pedestrian.
    • Re: My Pedantry Will Not be Stopped

      Thu, March 25, 2004 - 11:57 PM
      The simple fact of ownership is obviously not, in and of itself, pedantry. I don't believe it can be reasonably called pedestrian, nor, conversely, sophisticated, either.

      Does my having a copy of this book at hand prove me a pedant? No.

      Does my having a copy of this book at hand prove me to be ordinary, undistinguished, and dull? No.

      I fail to see your point.
  • Re: My Pedantry Will Not be Stopped

    Thu, March 25, 2004 - 10:26 PM
    I have one.

    But I have not read it cover to cover, I just pick it up and open it to random pages and wave it around when I need to prove to my boss that he's wrong.

    :p no I have read large bits of it, actually.
    • Re: My Pedantry Will Not be Stopped

      Thu, March 25, 2004 - 11:39 PM
      I refuse to put periods within quotes. That's just illogical.
      • Re: My Pedantry Will Not be Stopped

        Fri, March 26, 2004 - 7:57 AM
        "what about question marks?"
        • Re: My Pedantry Will Not be Stopped

          Fri, March 26, 2004 - 12:36 PM
          Or filenames, like "autoexec.bat"?
          • Re: My Pedantry Will Not be Stopped

            Fri, March 26, 2004 - 12:42 PM
            Actually, if you wanted to take logical punctuation (as it pertains to conclusion) to its logical conclusion, you'd end up with constructs like "And then he said 'I have cheese.'.".

            Which I'm all for, but I don't think it'll catch on.
            • Re: My Pedantry Will Not be Stopped

              Fri, March 26, 2004 - 12:55 PM
              So you say, "You'd end up with constructs like 'And then he said "I have cheese.".'.".

              Ouch.

              I like "'.'" It can be thought of as translating to "the end of this whole damn sentence, no matter how convoluted, and what more do you really need to know?" I think that, nine times out of ten, simplicity is far preferable in this sort of context.
              • Re: My Pedantry Will Not be Stopped

                Fri, March 26, 2004 - 1:07 PM
                You misquoted me. The word "you'd" shouldn't be capitalized.

                At least your quote ended with symmetrical punctuation.
                • Re: My Pedantry Will Not be Stopped

                  Fri, March 26, 2004 - 1:52 PM
                  I'm sorry, but starchy got it right, sort of...

                  If you were being quoted outside of the context of the original source (this list), you might be able to argue that some portion of the omitted section of text was salient. If that were the case, the issue would be ignoring the necessary portion of the statement and would be a misquote. However, in this context, it is not possible to make that argument, so all we need to look at is usage. When indicating a quotation with a comma, as Starchy has done, the first letter of the quote is always capitalized unless the quotation is broken into more than one piece (e.g.: "You'd end up," you say, "with..."). In this case, the second part of the quote should not be capitalized, but the first should. If Starchy had chosen to use the word 'that' instead of a comma, you would be right (e.g.: You say that "you'd..."). Unfortunately, this would fall much closer to a misquote as it would blur the referent of the second person pronoun. A better usage would be as follows: You say that "[I'd] end up with...". Of course, in that example, the capitalization comes from the word 'I' rather than the nature of the quotation.

                  Heh...

                  Perhaps -> You say that "[someone would] end up with..."

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