Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Roy Witt:   
      
    ak>>  British punctuation: 'It's nothing', said the boy from   
    ak>>  Japan, 'my grandfather is a Zen guru'.   
      
    RW>>  Why are you using apostrophes when you are quoting what   
    RW>>  someone has said?   
      
    ak>   Me not. But some people do.   
          |Colloquially I would say "not me", BTW.   
      
      
             On standard North American keyboards the single quotation mark & the   
   apostrophe are generally identical.  If Roy uses a font similar to the one I'm   
   using to read Fidonet mail he could, like me, be seeing a slight forward curve   
   ... which is inappropriate at the beginning of a quotation.  I understand what   
   other folks are trying to do when they use single quotation marks, but I agree   
   with both of you that double quotation marks are more practical at times.  ;-)   
      
      
      
    ak>>  American punctuation: "It's nothing," said the boy   
    ak>>  from Japan, "my grandfather is a Zen guru."   
      
      
             So far, so good.  That's the way I was taught....  :-)   
      
      
      
    ak>>  So if we use a double q. mark ["] we should use US   
    ak>>  punctuation rules, but if we use a single q. mark   
    ak>>  ['] we should use British punctuation.   
      
      
             I like the consistency there, at first glance... but some of us from   
   the ex-colonies don't relate to "shoulds" very well.   
      
             Is this your opinion, or some distinguished grammarian's opinion, or   
   both??  Canadians are at liberty to adopt US and/or UK conventions as they see   
   fit.  I prefer double quotation marks because it is highly unlikely they'll be   
   confused with apostrophes.  OTOH the idea that full stops (e.g.) *must* appear   
   inside any quotation marks, regardless of context, seems illogical to me.  :-)   
      
      
      
    ak>   British style quoting:   
    ak>   http://grammartips.homestead.com/inside.html   
    ak>   (logic is used)   
      
      
             Yes!  As an undergraduate English major at a local university I came   
   to the conclusion that the US punctuation which I'd been taught in high school   
   no longer met my needs.  I therefore decided to apply the rule of common sense   
   ... and nobody objected to the order in which I put various punctuation marks.   
   Some time went by before I associated it with British logic, however....  :-))   
      
             Nowadays many international publishers in the UK & in Australia seem   
   to be using double quotation marks.  But IMHO that's because it makes sense to   
   them to write in homogenized English so they can broaden their audience appeal   
   and maximize clarity, not because they feel US English is invariably "better".   
   You'll see, in my preceding sentence, an example of how I would apply the rule   
   of common sense if I am citing a single word without attribution... [chuckle].   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)