I suspect the rules in Canada are the same as the real rule here: “whatever you can get away with.” They can probably just get away with more because they can claim mixed influences. (grin)

Do you use Calibre software with your Kindle? It’s a free ebook management & conversion program and it knows how to sync to an indecent number of readers, including Kindle. It’ll convert PDFs to other formats. In fact, I think what it generates for the Nook is better than the Nook’s native PDF rendering. But the problem with images and tables remains.

Dave

d

I love Dave’s rationale for the periods going inside the quotation marks. It certainly makes sense.

Life has certainly changed with computerisation; typesetting is one of those things that have become much easier thanks to the chip.

Great lesson in punctuation. You know, it’s hard to get that once one has left school. Thanks.

Lorraine

“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.”

Exactly–for Americans, anyhow. (I don’t know about those crazy Canadians. :D) I was talking about the comma before the quotes.

Actually, I wouldn’t have used a comma before the quotes in this sentence: I don’t entirely buy it, but typography is such a mishmash of aesthetics, mechanics, and tradition that it’s plausible enough to silence the kids asking, “why?”

I couldn’t explain why. It just doesn’t look quite right to me.

Quack. I LIKE that. :)

d

The rule I was given was to place a comma or period inside the quotation marks. Larger end marks like exclamation or question went outside, unless they were part of the quotation.

The reason was purely mechanics: when type was set by hand, the narrower punctuation slugs at the end of a sentence fell out more easily. So when typesetters had the opportunity they used the wider quotation mark to help restrain the wayward marks.

I don’t entirely buy it, but typography is such a mishmash of aesthetics, mechanics, and tradition that it’s plausible enough to silence the kids asking, “why?”

(For shorter names for the marks, Unix computer people have a lexicon of symbol names that are easier to say, like bang (!), mesh (#), squiggle (~), and splat (*). For some reason I want to use “quack” for “?".)

Dave

I believe the rule for quotes is that a comma precedes them only if they are used to denote someone speaking (or in some cases, thinking).

d

Yes, it was a real question. I was always taught, “A comma before quotation marks and if the phrase or sentence within the quotation marks is at the end of a sentence the punctuation for such is inside the quotation marks.” Nowadays, I tend to try to err on the side of common sense, putting the ending punctuation where logic rather than a hard and fast rule would put it, well, most of the time. Nice to know there is precedent for this.

My husband works as a medical writer and has an organisation-wide style guide as well as those, both written and unwritten, for most clients, then we have Canadian, UK, and US style guides. Interestingly enough, most press in Canada tend to use American spellings on most words though, when written, Z is still “zed” and not “zee.”
Some rhymes just don’t work without it.

Lorraine