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Inmate Central, where civil and family-friendly discourse about off-audio topics (other than religion and politics) is welcome.

Oh ya!!!

My profs were not very easy on us when we used incorrect punctuation...luckily, I'm no longer in school so I can choose to forget all that's "correct" and occasionally (at least) throw the rules out with the rest of the useless garbage.

In all seriousness, I believe high standards should be adhered to when writing at any time. The argument we had here at Central a year or two ago concerned the "why" of where quotation marks are applied more than the "where." The last sentence ended in exactly the ways in which we were discussing. Checking in my MLA, the rules are so complex and ambiguous, that anyone would be driven crazy by what is and what is not correct:

Long quotes, periods outside the mark: short quotes, periods inside the mark, except when...da dee da dee da dee. AND if the damned MLA even made it as simple as I just wrote people could understand, but NOOOOOOO! But simplicity is not a word one could ever use concerning the English language and especially, its use of punctuation.

Back when I was writing a lot of research papers, I would constantly check to see which was correct in what situation. THEN, I would have a friend who teaches middle school English in the area check to see if I'd CHOSEN correctly, THEN I'd review it once or twice more...and there would always be mistakes to revise.

When I got really frustrated, I took it to another prof (ANY prof, as long as THAT paper wasn't for their class). Invariably, one would contradict the other about SOMETHING!

So, when we discussed this here at Central, it was (humorously) suggested that a period should ALWAYS be outside of the quotation mark. Which of course, is wrong. BUT WHO CARES in the end?

I would, and still do, work hard to construct a sentence that any word used with quotation marks would either be within the sentence (rather than end with it) or used in a way to set the type in italics.

THAT made it simple; and right, wrong or whatever, simplicity in writing is far better than long winded shit like I just wrote!


Any incorrect punctuation marks or misuse of any point of grammar in the above diatribe is not the fault of the writer, as he is brain-dead.
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If I had more money I'd soon be broke...but I'd have more LPs!


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