Subj : Why is the apostrophe use
To   : Mike Powell
From : Anton Shepelev
Date : Mon Apr 06 2020 00:40:16

Mike Powell - DENIS MOSKO:

> > @MSGID: <5E89F31C.964.englisht@capitolcityonline.net>
> > David said, "Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack
> > off".
>
> > David said, 'Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack
> > off'.
>
> > See how silly the second one is, using the same punctuation
> > mark for the missing letter in don't as for what David spoke?
>
> I do not think that the second one is correct for how one would
> normally punctuate that sentence in English.

Especially in ASCII, where the same character plays the roles of
the apostrophe and of the opening single quotation mark.

> We would normally use the double-quote as in the first example.
> We would also put the period at the end inside of the second
> double-quote mark.

inside *of*?  I think that `inside' is a complete preposition by
itself. The placement of the full stop insde the quotation is more
beautiful than outside it, whereas the logically correct
punctuation is the ugliest:

David said "Today we shall all be working hard, don't slack off.".

Both the quoted and quoting sentences shall have their terminating
punctuation.  No comma is logically required after `said' because
David's utternace is its direct object.

David's request sounds rather illogical after the promise of hard
work, unless is addressed to someone wihtout the group to which
"we" refers...

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