Writing, British Style, Yes

Ruth Walker opines about the invasion of British rules — called “logical” — for punctuation, and instead of welcoming the democratic process expresses a bit of the curmudgeonly way of many grammar folks.

While we’re at it, how about a vote for the single (‘instead’ of “double”) quotation mark? Elegant.

And, for those who are thinking along these lines, isn’t a good day for Americans to acknowledge at some dependence on the Brits? [But only some.]

Have you noticed the flood of reports lately that British-style “logical” punctuation is “taking over”?

OK, call it a “puddle” of reports, but how often does punctuation make headlines at all?

Last month Ben Yagoda published a column in Slate headed “The Rise of ‘Logical Punctuation’.” A subhead sternly warned that the placement of that period was not a copy error.

Mr. Yagoda began, “For at least two centuries, it has been standard practice in the United States to place commas and periods inside of quotation marks.” That practice continues in professionally edited prose, he added.

“But in copy-editor-free zones – the Web and emails, student papers, business memos – with increasing frequency, commas and periods find themselves on the outside of quotation marks, looking in. A punctuation paradigm is shifting.”

He supports his arguments with his own review of punctuation on pages on the Web (“because it displays in a clear light the way we write now”). The style he’s describing is known as “logical” (when it’s not known simply as “British”), because the comma or period is placed within or without the quotes on the basis of whether the punctuation is part of the original utterance.

Here’s an example of a familiar sentence punctuated “logically”: “The only thing we have to fear”, said Franklin Roosevelt, “is fear itself.” The comma after the first “fear” wasn’t in the original utterance. And so it doesn’t make it into the embrace of the quote marks but instead flaps out there in the line of text like an untucked shirttail.

Here’s the same sentence punctuated “traditionally”: “The only thing we have to fear,” said Franklin Roosevelt, “is fear itself.”

Yagoda reports that according to the Modern Language Association, American-style or “traditional” punctuation goes back to the early years of the republic and was instituted for aesthetic reasons: It arguably just looks better.

But familiarity counts for much, too, especially for an editor who is as used to checking for commas and periods to be tucked in at the right place as a night watchman is used to rattling doorknobs.

If I may launch an apparent digression: When I was in my early teens, my family moved from southern California to South Carolina on account of my father’s work. As head cheerleader for the whole enterprise, he kept pointing out to us interesting things about our new home: new foods, new ways of doing things, new ways of talking.

One day he came home to report a colorful new pronunciation he’d heard: He’d met a man who used a word he pronounced “in-TRIG-id.” Dad was sure he’d found a Southern way of saying intrigued.

I was just old enough to know the dangers of saying aloud for the first time in company a word one knows only from reading. And so I asked, “Dad, are you sure it’s a real Southern pronunciation? Do you think maybe he just doesn’t know how to pronounce ‘intrigued’?” I don’t remember Dad’s answer.

But where Yagoda thinks he sees a punctuation paradigm shifting, I think I may be seeing the typographical equivalent of “in-TRIG-id.” To call it “logical” may impute too much logic to those who practice the style.

And if the subject is the English language, and the contest is between logic and tradition, I’d call it for tradition in a heartbeat.

Now you tell me which is better? I quote a friend’s use of the world “balderdash” but I do so in a question, and according to American rules I have to say it this way: Did he say “balderdash?” The Brits, who’ve got more experience on this one, put it like this: “Did he say ‘balderdash’?

And in conjunction with this development, word now is that the Oxford comma has been dropped and, in its place, we got Shatner’s comma:

Rumors of the death of the Oxford comma have been greatly exaggerated.

The Oxford comma, thought by some to be an annoying punctuation foible, appears in a list of multiple items before the “and.” Here’s how the Oxford comma looks in a sentence: “Scotty transported Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, and a redshirt down to the planet’s surface.”

The Twitterverse erupted Wednesday that the Oxford comma had been dropped by none other than the Oxford University Press….

See, the problem people have with the Oxford comma is that it puts a pause where some think one doesn’t belong. The idea is that “I went to the market to get triple sec, limes and tequila” is better, or more modern, than “I went to the market to get triple sec, limes, and tequila.” And the Shatner comma? It, does, nothing, but, put, pauses, where, they, do, not, belong.

Once again, on this day when we celebrate throwing off the shackles of England’s concern with tea taxes, we have to confess — or at least the wise among us will confess — that we need England. I wonder what my friends in Ireland (the Republic) are doing: are they happy about the loss of the Oxford comma or did they toss her away long before us?