I am a nerd by choice and by profession.  I spend a good portion of every day coding web sites and applications (and soon maybe an iPhone App or two).  Because of the large portion of time that I spend focusing on syntax and the need for it be precise (has to be perfect or it doesn’t work), I notice things that others may not be inclined to notice.

English is a tricky language.  There are no rules.  There are things that are called rules but they all have exceptions, which means they aren’t rules (because there is no punishment for breaking them).  They are just generalities that are followed a majority of the time which isn’t useful for someone trying to remember them or for someone who has the misfortune of trying to learn the language. One rule, which I think is one of the few rules which is followed 100% of the time, is that punctuation always goes inside of quotation marks.

“I hate English.” – Correct

“I hate English”. – Incorrect

It’s great that we have this rule, but this rule is wrong and should be ignored from here-on-out.  The period/question mark/exclamation mark is used to end sentences.  Below we have a sentence that contains a quote:

He exclaimed “what a stupid fucking rule.”

The word ‘He’ begins the sentence, and the entire quotation ends the sentence.  Since the quotation is a part of the sentence, the quotation should be concluded before the sentence is concluded (with it’s appropriate punctuation mark).

<Sentence><Quotation></Sentence></Quotation>

That is how it would look as web code. Even a non code-monkey can tell that it looks funny because you have the tag to end the sentence before you have the tag to end the quotation, and the quotation is is started within the confines of the sentence.  It should be:

<Sentence><Quotation></Quotation></Sentence>

I know English isn’t perfect, that’s why we left England.  I just wish we could have some sort of consortium that could gather every year and discuss ways to improve the language so that it makes more sense.  Make sure you get someone smart to chair the consortium though, otherwise it defeats the purpose.  Pick someone who understands rules and conventions.  (Call me).