Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
It's time to get with current rules of typography.
|
US rules are not the only ones. Also as stated earlier, the en dash vs em dash for bracketing and single vs double quotes are not universal in either direction in many countries. Any one novel wants to be consistent.
We use double quotes for speech, em dash for attribution or broken off speech and en dashes with spaces for bracketing as we are in Ireland. But you can find UK books the same. Personally I think a space at opening dash and after closing dash would work like (brackets), but I've never seen it and so it looks odd. Usually em with no spaces or en with a space on both sides.
We recommend the USA ‘Oxford comma’ before the ‘and’ at the end of a list only if it's ambiguous rather than always or never.
But very many things are a question of taste and context hence we have Style Guides.
The worst was my 1960s and 1970s English teachers prescriptively applying Victorian and also Latin rules (which are largely irrelevant) to English Grammar as well as simply made up daft rules that might apply to a script for the stage, but not to ordinary prose.
There was also too much emphasis on Formal Writing and Journalistic Reporting rather than anything relating to fiction or dialogue.
There is no good reason for the rest of the world to adopt Webster's spellings and one particular set of USA punctuation rules.
Also some rules like smaller spacing between a number and units, or small caps for certain abbreviation work 100% for paper but erratically for ebooks and web pages. Early ebooks on the Palm were little better than a proportional version of a terminal or typewriter!