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Below is the sentence I am writing. I am not sure whether I should just end it with an interrogation mark within the quotes, with a period within the quotes, no in-quote punctuation except interrogation mark, or a period outside the quotation marks.

Those of you without any experience with drug or alcohol addiction are probably reading this scratching your heads thinking, “WTF is this guy talking about, if their problem is not drugs or alcohol how can they be classified as an addict or an alcoholic and why do they consistently abuse drugs or alcohol. How is that not their problem when they can't hold down a job or take their kids to school because they're always under the ...
... influence?”.
... influence?”
... influence”.
... influence.”
... influence”?

Which alternative should I use?

James Waldby - jwpat7
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Sam
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2 Answers2

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My answer is not really in the other threads except partially in the comments from programmers, so here goes. First, instead of looking for a single correct way to do things, I think it's more helpful to think about what is acceptable and understandable to your audience. Your real-world experience will more effective and less confusing this way because different audiences have different expectations and conventions.

Below are a few variations that I find acceptable and understandable, with notes on the type of audience that I think they best fit. Your original paragraph was understandable and possibly good for people who like smooth-flowing text that reads a lot like speech. But I think it could also use more-informative capitalization and punctuation to clarify the structure for others. I added these changes in the first example, in case they're useful.

1) Those of you without any experience with drug or alcohol addiction are probably reading this scratching your heads thinking:

"WTF is this guy talking about? If their problem is not drugs or alcohol, how can they be classified as an addict or an alcoholic? And why do they consistently abuse drugs or alcohol? How is that not their problem when they can't hold down a job or take their kids to school because they're always under the influence?" [scientists, mathematicians]

2) Those of you...thinking "WTF...the influence?". [programmers]

3) Those of you...thinking, "WTF...the influence?" [people who read English prescriptive grammar books (whether they are grammar snobs or perfectly nice people seeking the knowledge or opinion of other language users)]

Also, I'm very curious why you put those first two commas there. Do you pause when you say the sentence there, or were you thinking about the sentence structurally? I'm just curious.

Edit to add examples for suspect advice. As far as I know, you cannot search for punctuation on google because they ignore it. However, there are some search engines that intentionally include punctuation, and they luckily happen to be aimed at programmers. Here are the results from a search for ?"., which got 247 hits. Interestingly, most of them appear to be from SO (StackOverflow, a Q&A site for programmers). Some examples:

  1. I asked the question "Will Rebol 3 extension support any windows api call including those requiring callback ?".
  2. None of these answers address what I understand to be the question, which is what I was searching for, "how do I handle items that have visibility == hidden?".
  3. Question was "How can I then find out the application running time ?".

For comparison, a search for ?" gets 5,258 hits (trying to include a terminal space made no difference). However, here are some examples showing that this returns lots of what in our case are false-positives since the quote doesn't end the sentence:

  1. How to detect “has user selected entire document or not ?” in html javascript
  2. Bind collection as the right-hand-side of a “where col in ?” clause
  3. Our project application uses Java 5 and now when I update Java 6, there are some kind of inconsistency with functionality and seeing this effects our manager passed comment that "Java is platform independent but version dependent", Is it really true ?

This last example is notable because they use the comma outside of the quotes, but the title is Is it correct to say that “Java is platform independent but version dependent ?”. So it's not always obvious what people are thinking.

Wikipedia also notes this "logical" style, though in connection with the UK and "science and technical publications".

Community
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Rachel
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  • I think, Rachel, that "[people who read English prescriptive grammar books]" should be changed to "[people who believe that prescriptive grammar books about English are infallibly and literally The Truth]". I read them but do not conform to your pejorative stereotype of people who read such -- what shall I call it, "heresy", "blasphemy", "obscenity", "profanity", or "regulatory garbage"? –  Aug 24 '12 at 22:50
  • @billfranke: I didn't mean it pejoratively. I do dislike grammar Nazis, but if you call a group Nazis, that's to be expected. My reason for using that description was that people who read English prescriptive grammar books should consider that case understandable even if they don't personally prefer it, and if people do adhere to such books, then they should also find it acceptable. I tried a list, but it got long and was less accurate. It began "writers, editors, English majors", but plenty of those people would prefer one of the other cases. Granted, generalizations often have exceptions. – Rachel Aug 24 '12 at 23:05
  • @ Rachel ~ what makes you think programmers need two full-stops? That is not being prescriptive or a grammar Nazi, it is just common sense. When you already have a full-stop in the question mark there is no logical reason to have a second one following it. – Roaring Fish Aug 26 '12 at 10:41
  • @RoaringFish: Because that is what they actually do. I program myself, and that is what makes logical sense. The question mark is part of the quote not part of the containing sentence. You can see this opinion expressed if you google on this subject. Also, it has been mentioned in comments to the questions linked to here and elsewhere (I just discovered this one). – Rachel Aug 26 '12 at 20:50
  • @Rachel ~ Neither of your links says anything about having two full stops,as you show in your example:~ Those of you...thinking "WTF...the influence?". [programmers] You have one full-stop as part of the question mark inside the quotes, and another one all by itself outside the quotes. Can you explain why? Or do you think I should write why?. – Roaring Fish Aug 27 '12 at 07:20
  • As for your link, Mr Scharfenberg should speak to one of those "writers, editors, English majors" you are so derogatory about. They would inform him that ipconfig /renew is not a sentence and does not require a full-stop, and they might suggest that he mark it by using italics, as I have done. He is making very heavy weather of a simple problem... – Roaring Fish Aug 27 '12 at 07:24
  • @RoaringFish: First, I have already explained a few comments above that the name for my category was not meant pejoratively, so it seems plain nasty and rude of you to accuse me of this again. If you think I was lying, please say so directly and give some justification. – Rachel Aug 27 '12 at 08:52
  • @RoaringFish: Second, whether the thing being quoted is a full sentence or not is not the point. The most popular advice coming from prescriptive grammarians is to include sentence punctuation inside of quotes, so I find Mr. Scharfenberg's example is valid. Third, yes, I have said why there are two full stops there: the first one is part of the quote; the second is not. – Rachel Aug 27 '12 at 08:56
  • "One is inside; one is outside" is not why, it is just saying what is. Saying to someone "you're a jerk, but I don't mean that pejoratively" does not stop it being perjorative. Grammarians (and I notice that you have to add the pejorative 'prescriptive' again...) do not say what you say, and they never say 'use two full stops if you are a programmer'. What they do say, if you would listen to them instead of dismissing them as prescriptivist, is that quoted material goes inside the quotes and unquoted material goes outside. Mr S is not valid because he is not using a sentence. – Roaring Fish Aug 27 '12 at 09:13
  • @RoaringFish: Of course they don't say to use two full stops if you're a programmer. I never even suggested that they do. You should reread my answer again because you appear to have misunderstood it. Prescriptive is not pejorative to me. If it is to you, then sorry, but that is the only accurate way that I know to distinguish them from descriptivists, who wouldn't agree with them on this but would probably give an answer more like mine, describing behavior of language communities. And Mr. S's comments apply equally to a sentence; your complaint is missing his point. – Rachel Aug 27 '12 at 09:19
  • Your example for the third time: Those of you...thinking "WTF...the influence?". [programmers] <- it has two full-stops, which you label as 'programmers'. Prescriptive is pejorative as it suggest a lack of underlying reasoning. No, a descriptive grammarian would not agree with you about having two full-stops. Mr S. says The user, being a user, types: ipconfig /renew. A problem which applies only to a terminal command - not a sentence - and could be avoided by italics, which is my whole point. Show me a grammarian that said "end terminal commands with a full stop". – Roaring Fish Aug 27 '12 at 09:35
  • @RoaringFish: You're putting words in my mouth still, on both topics. I never said that most grammarians would accept what most programmers would accept. My answers says: "Below are a few variations that I find acceptable and understandable, with notes on the type of audience that I think they best fit." It does not say "below is what I think grammarians would suggest for those audiences". – Rachel Aug 27 '12 at 09:45
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    @RoaringFish: If you insist on using the pejorative sense after I have already explained that I mean the other sense, then that is not my problem. That's like calling everyone a racist who uses the word black. – Rachel Aug 27 '12 at 09:47
  • "descriptivists, who wouldn't agree with them on this but would probably give an answer more like mine," is your comment, not one I invented. If you repeatedly referred to 'black grammarians' yes, I would see it as racist. You wont find many professionals describing themselves as prescriptive grammarians, because it is pejorative in any sense. “Much of the time, though not always, decisions about what is good and bad are essentially arbitrary and do not often reflect any crucial principle of language or thought.” Perspectives On Pedagogical Grammar by Terence Odlin – Roaring Fish Aug 27 '12 at 09:59
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    The word 'prescriptivist' is not pejorative. 'Descriptivist' is equally lacking. Of course one can use either disparagingly. – Mitch Aug 27 '12 at 13:02
  • @RoaringFish: in mathematically styled communication, quoting quotes the entire source. If the item quoted has an operator that acts like a terminator (a stop), then that is part of the quote. A mathematical sentence that requires a terminator, even if it is also at the time quoting something else, will also have a 'stop' element. Programmers tend to write with some mathematical characteristics. So having two stops, one inside the quote, and one in the outer sentence, is not uncommon, though at variance with American punctuation rules. – Mitch Aug 27 '12 at 13:06
  • @Mitch (two above): Prescriptivists' errors are greater if they claim that their preferred 'rule' is Gospel when it is far from universally accepted. This is very obviously true when two prescriptive schools argue over which alternative should be endorsed. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 27 '12 at 14:56
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    @EdwinAshworth: It would be out of scope for questions/answers/comments here to discuss the merits of prescriptivism or descriptivism over the other. Please start up a conversation at chat about it. – Mitch Aug 27 '12 at 15:06
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User your intuition and create a standard for yourself. Here's mine:

  • Lexical rhetorical questions that are meant to invoke thought take a question mark:

    Is it the right thing to do? What would Sharon say?

  • Rhetorical questions that would be or are embedded in conditionals take a period:

    It was our fifth night on stakeout, hunger was starting to set in, and our vigilance was starting to dwindle. We began to wonder, 'would the criminal would emerge from his nest anytime soon.' Three hours gooped by.

  • Exclamatory rhetorical that demands an answer, embedded similarly to the above, takes an exclamation point:

    I was there, man! You ask yourself what you would have done!

  • Exclamatory rhetorical questions that are not embedded as above take an exclamation point and a question mark:

    You TALK TOO MUCH! What the Hell do you fracking mean!? ! SKIP TO THE POINT!

James Waldby - jwpat7
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Wolfpack'08
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