MSGID: 1:153/716.0 e8e7e470   
   REPLY: 965.englisht@1:2320/105 22ef4d39   
   CHRS: IBMPC 2   
   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+   
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