Hi again, Alexander!  This is a continuation of my previous message to you:   
      
    AH>  As a student I was limited to what could be done with   
    AH>  a standard typewriter.  I was in very much the same   
    AH>  position we're in, AAMOF, when we are discussing English   
    AH>  usage via Fidonet... [chuckle].   
      
    ak>  I believe that punctuation must be for the standard text   
    ak>  only.   
      
      
             It certainly is useful to be able to communicate in writing, with or   
   without access to a variety of fonts, in other situations too.  The authors of   
   many grammar books seem unaware that not all of us have word processors... and   
   although a 1963 high school grammar text confirmed what I thought I remembered   
   about how to deal with such things I found a few glossed over or left out just   
   as I did when I consulted Anne Stilman's 1997 publication.   
      
      
             Using an example of my own invention & expanding on the former:   
      
      "The Hunting of the Snark", from _The Collected Works of Lewis Carroll_,   
      is a poem which I enjoyed reading many years ago.   
      
   If you're referring to something which has been published under separate cover   
   ... e.g. a book or periodical... the title is underlined.  I know I'm breaking   
   the rules when I use upper case letters in Fidonet.  I do this because I can't   
   fit two characters into one space & it's easy to find the title later....  :-)   
      
   If you're referring to a poem, a short story, a news article, etc. which forms   
   part of a larger work the title is put in quotation marks.   
      
   The initial word of a title is capitalized.  Otherwise articles, prepositions,   
   and conjunctions are not capitalized.   
      
      
      
    ak>  what should you put instead of italics when write by   
    ak>  hand?   
      
      
             If you want to explain (e.g.) that "babushka" means "grandmother" in   
   Russian, help is available at debate.uvm.edu/dcpdf/mlacrib.pdf page 3....  :-)   
      
      
      
    ak>  Another issue here is that the Russian quoting system,   
    ak>  actually, has two types of quotation. The variant for   
    ak>  handwriting and the variant for books. The fist variant   
    ak>  is close to British, but our books have absolutely another   
    ak>  quotation system. It looks like this:   
      
    ak>  John and Peter are talking with each other:   
    ak>  - What a nasty whether was yesterday!   
    ak>  - Yeah, I was wet as fish!   
      
      
             We make notes handwritten in "point form" this way... and we tend to   
   omit quotation marks in riddles where it doesn't matter who said what:   
      
    Q.  Why was the piano player arrested?   
    A.  He got into treble.   
      
   IIRC I've seen such exchanges without the "Q." & "A." in published collections   
   of jokes.  In any case, I ran across the above example in a note I had written   
   as a reminder to myself awhile ago.  I left out the "Q." & "A." there....  :-)   
      
      
             I found your example very interesting because as a native speaker of   
   English I'm not likely to see such things in novels which have been translated   
   from Russian.  Now that I think about it... if I have chosen to read a British   
   translation I'm not surprised to see British punctuation, and if I have chosen   
   to read a USAian translation I'm not surprised to see USAian punctuation.  The   
   punctuation sometimes has to be translated together with the author's words, I   
   guess.  In any case I believe translation is as much an art as a science.  ;-)   
      
      
             In North American punctuation... once the author has established who   
   is speaking to whom, and whose turn it is to speak next:   
      
    "What nasty weather we had yesterday!"   
    "Yeah, I was (as) wet as a fish!"   
      
      
      
    ak>  As we see, the Russian book makers economize a lot paint   
    ak>  and metal, not using quotation marks.  Almost. ;)   
      
      
             Either way folks who enjoy saving bytes will be happy.  We have them   
   in North America too.  And IMHO it's good to be able to laugh at oneself.  :-)   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)