Subj : Why is the apostrophe use
To   : Mike Powell
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Wed Apr 08 2020 21:30:28

Hi, Mike!  Recently you wrote in a message to Denis Mosko:

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

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

DM>  See how silly the second one is, using the same punctuation mark
DM>  for the missing letter in don't as for what David spoke?

MP>  I do not think that the second one is correct for how one would
MP>  normally punctuate that sentence in English.  We would normally
MP>  use the double-quote as in the first example.


            North Americans tend to prefer double quotation marks whereas those 
from the UK & other parts of the British Commonwealth don't.  Denis has a point 
in that our keyboards & Fidonet software make no distinction between the single 
quotation mark & the apostrophe.  Readers who are learning English as a foreign 
language may find this confusing.  But as a Canadian with an ex-Brit background 
I accept whichever way others do it because I'm quite used to seeing both.  :-)



MP>  We would also put the period at the end inside of the
MP>  second double-quote mark.


            And re this example the order would be the same in US & UK English.




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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