Re: Punctuation WAS amber v orange

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- STARBASECORP -dot- COM>]

Lori -

I agree with you that Carl should use "amber" to describe
the color of the lights, but maybe not for the same reason.
I've found in working with many ESL SME's that they are
far more precise in their use of English words than we are.
They may, in fact, argue that the color is amber and *not*
orange or yellow. As long as you are consistent throughout
the document, they'll accept it.  What they don't accept
is inconsistency. Most languages don't have half the
synonyms we do!

> BTW, any comments on my placing the puncuation _outside_ the
> quotes when it follows a PHRASE, as in the paragraph above?
> I just can't see putting them _inside_ the quotes except when
> writing dialog.  I'd LOVE to hear others' opinions on this!

Putting the punctuation outside the quotation marks unless
the punctuation belongs to the quote is British style
rather than American style. The writer that I work with and
I both prefer it that way, so we put it in the company
style guide. It just makes more sense.

One of the most English-nerdy humerous things I've ever
seen is that half way through The Story of English, the
authors say they are switching to pure American English
for the rest of the book. However, they never did switch
punctuation styles, so the commas and periods remained
outside the quotes. I don't know if they did this on
purpose, or just didn't think it was truely a part of
language.  :-)

BTW - put that book on the top 10 list. What a great
way to find out why we say what we say!

Sue Gallagher
StarBase Corp, Irvine CA
sgallagher -at- starbasecorp -dot- com