Of course a period can go on the outside.

REDICULOUS!

.

I feel like I'm missing a joke/level or something.

Also, how do so many people on internet forums spell 'definitely' as 'defiantly?'

EDIT: Huh, I never realized there are exceptions, but according to this link:

Right: What did Martin Luther King mean when he said, "I have a dream"?

That's pretty much the nittiest thing ever, but yes.

Is the punctuation correct here?

OK, I understand your point. I guess I meant in common, everyday usage you rarely use a period outside of quotes.

Complaining that certain words are superlative or logical relations and aren't supposed to take modifiers like more - unique, perfect, pregnant, etc. - always seemed overly nitty to me. Unique I can maybe see. But "more perfect union" is a pretty damn clear phrase that has an awesome ring to it, and to say that one woman is more pregnant than another seems like a very standard idiom suggesting she is later in the pregnancy.

However it is an English-English company and therefore I would pronounce it in English-English.

This is true in British English, but in American English a period generally goes inside the quotation mark.

I have a similar problem with the phrase "exact same," which we are all likely to hear many times today. It's redundant. "Exact same" means the same thing as "same." "We had the exact same lunch today!"

This would be true if the modifier was being used in a relative sense, but they're being used for emphasis and to change the meaning of what they're saying. FWIW I always took "more perfect union" to mean "more perfect than those limey bastards across the pond," so it made sense to be.

I don't like it when people describe what they are doing and put asteriks or something similar around it. Example:

You are so funny!!!11! *comes around and gives a HUGE HUG*



OTOH, I like it when people are creative with language. And even nits should remember that a language is always a living creature and some kind of evolution is inevitable (re "alot").

(I'm not a native English speaker so I'm immune to your mockery! )

It's called "logic".

Why would you use quotation marks in this sentence?

ETA: Even if you needlessly choose to use quotes here, the period should be inside, from everything I've ever learned (and I edited books and magazines for three years).

ETA again: This.

This rule applies even when the unit enclosed at the end of the sentence is just a single word rather than an actual quotation:

~To get to the next page, just press the little button marked "Enter."

The only exception is when that last little item enclosed in quotation marks is just a letter or a number, in which case the period or comma will go outside the closing quotation marks:

~The buried treasure was marked on the map with a large "X".

~The only grade that will satisfy her is an "A".

~On this scale, the highest ranking is a "1", not a "10".

Actually it is now an Indian-English company, owned by Tata Motors.

Previously it was an American-English company, owned by Ford.

lol split infinitive

That's strange.

There's a sign by a mall where I used to live that says, "SLOW DANGEROUS CURVE." I always wanted to take a sharpie and punctuate it.

Alright, I minus well say that you ******s won't change a thing unless society makes a quantum leap and the Attorney Generals or the capital make it illegal to write bad.

Technically, something is perfect or it is not. What "more perfect" means in that context would more accurately be phrased as "closer to perfect." I agree that it makes sense, but you can see this is just the same as "more unique."

Capital/capitol is a big one. I just don't think there are enough phrases like attorneys general (courts martial? passers by?) to warrant getting terribly upset about that one, but I do like those as well. Instead of penalizing people I just give them bonus points when they get it right.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors

The typical American rule is that commas and periods are always inside quotes, and other punctuation is placed logically. The (superior) British rule, which is frequently used in American technical writing, is that all punctuation is placed logically.

Or have the Surgeons General lobotomize you.

by the way - 'timeouts' or 'times-out'? there's another sports one like this too.

Times-out just sounds gross. I think timeout is a single word, anyway, and likely a neologism invented for sports, so I vote timeouts all the way.