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Tuesday
Apr042006

9 little updates went to market... 

well, well, where do I start? It's been a week. Almost an eternity here in Andy-Land®. I just have time for a brief update, but I leave for a week of Caedmon's show on Thursday night, so I should have plenty more time to catch you up then. So, today's post will be cliff-notes.

1. The run of Andy O shows ended Saturday night. The run was, how you say.... interesting. But the band was great, and more importantly, we had a really fun time. I'll fill you in more later, but I want to say a huge thanks to everybody who came to the shows. It meant a lot to me that folks showed up to hear us sing our songs.

2. I got really sick Sunday, just a really nasty cold-cough thing that's just sort of knocked me out. I'm starting to feel better today, but will go to bed very early again tonight.

3. I want a cool hat, but I look like a nerd in cool hats, so I'm on the hunt for a cool "un-cool" hat.

4. Rick Felkel gave me the electric 12-string I had him make for me and I'm in love with it.

5. My Chucks suffered a near-fatal rip. I've had them since high school. Now I must buy new shoes. Dang.

6. "Lost" was great last week. So was "The Office."

7. A question that has bothered me for months. In the above sentence, should the period have gone inside or outside the quotes? Please respond all you English Majors who actually graduated. It's killing me.

8. I, along with Randall Goodgame, Andrew Peterson and the Gullahorns did an interview about the Square Peg Alliance today with InFuze magazine. It was fun.

9. I can't stay awake and I still need to do my taxes, so I'm going to go now. Talk to you soon.

Reader Comments (27)

It should go outside of the quotes, because its not actually part of the title.

I teach 9th and 10th grade english.

Always enjoy your blogs.

April 4, 2006 | Unregistered Commentercaedmonfanone

well, caedmonfanone does teach high school english, and I haven't graduated, but I always learned in college (and never was counted wrong) that the punctuation always goes inside the quote marks. Maybe its one of those English things that can go either way. There's my 1.5 cents.

April 4, 2006 | Unregistered CommenterMark Miller

I thought it would go on the inside as well, because it applies to the whole sentence.

April 4, 2006 | Unregistered CommenterLiz S

my dad, a man very persistant about this issue, always insisted that punctuation goes inside of quotes.

April 4, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterronzilla

I gotta go with inside the quotes on this one. It just looks funny on the outside:

So was "The Office".

April 4, 2006 | Unregistered CommenterKale

um, since no one has tackled this question yet, it goes inside the quotes. there, i said it.

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered CommenterNickFlora

On behalf of English 301, the period goes on the inside of the quote. However, like many rules of puncuation, this rule has changed and developed over time (see previous discussion on whether there are two spaces after a period or not). But for now, the period stands inside. Period.

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered CommenterCaleb C.

yeah, what they all said.

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterdave the bearded

hehe, yeah, it goes outside... apparently all these colleges are teaching improper Engrish. ;)

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterstephanie

Hodges Harbrace Handbook says inside the quotes, but who am I to argue with an English teacher? I only edit to pay the rent for the time being.

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterelijah

I've worked in various media outlets and AP style is clear: periods and commas are always inside the quotes. Now...question marks are another story altogether...

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered Commentersevenmiles

If it is a whole quotation, the period goes inside, but when you are referencing a short work it goes on the outside. But really The Office should be underlined or put in intallics because it is published independently. But I don't know if you can use underlines or itallics on this blog.

I am pretty sure this is all correct, I checked Purdue's Online Writing Lab...I hope I am not giving out wrong info.

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered Commentercaedmonfanone

Period inside, and The Office should be italicized.

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered Commentermatthewsmith

inside the quotes in american english, outside the quotes in brittish. Always.

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterandy

andy is to hats as i am to sunglasses. no matter how cool they look on other people, i look like an idiot in them. i think its my nose.

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterbryan a

Yes, it should be Lost and The Office.

But on to more important things, I'll see you tomorrow night, AO.

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered CommenterGeof F. Morris

9 little updates went to marke? awww. you have 9 toes.

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterherecomesmoses

i did not graduate. it should go outside. it looks better that way.

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterclyde

See, I'm still in college too, but I've always put them outside the quotations... maybe that's because I'm always having to cite stuff when I quote it. It just looks weird having "And the world was flat." (48). Two periods in one space? Word no likey. That's my humble opinion... but then again, I haven't graduate yet ;)

April 5, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterthebackstageguy

I write a novel a year and have my three proofers all telling me to keep my confounded periods inside the quote marks.
(sigh)
Don't ask me about hats, I'm better at writing than I am at fashion.
(sigh)
"Lost"? Or is it, "Lost?" Anyway, I'll do like I did last year: ignore the TV and get the entire season on DVD, then watch it in a two-week marathon. WAY INTENSE; like Simm-Island or something, yet legal, unlike the drugs I once did.

April 6, 2006 | Unregistered Commentermert575

In response to thebackstageguy, when citing, ending punctuation goes only after the citation.

Andy, did you ever guess you would get so much response about a grammar question?

April 6, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterelijah

the modern language association, which annually dictates the MLA guideline is a racket. they change rules at will so that they can mandate/sell a new edition every couple of years.. to the chagrin of college students everywhere. i think that this contributes to the discrepancies in tutelage as well.

beyond that.. i feel like this generation (one that learned to type for IM-ing..) has taken ownership of written language and punctuation anyways. i, for example, forgo capitalization cos i just don't like it. it interrupts my flow. word.

andy's new record is awesome. word.

April 6, 2006 | Unregistered Commentermisterirwin

re: the shows
on the upside- i looked up during a performance of andy's new rock opus "santa barbara" to see cason cooley doing windmills on his new elloree guitar (think the who) and that was awesome enough for me.

April 7, 2006 | Unregistered Commentermisterirwin

With all the recent hub-bub and banter over the quotation dilemma, I feel almost reticent to post my comments on the subject. Besides, enough people have already confirmed that ALL commas and periods should be placed inside the quotation marks. :) The Pantagraph did do justice to the article about The Normals. Originally being from Bloomington/Normal myself, I was quite pleased to see such an article in the local paper. The sentiment of "Christian" record labels becoming "too Christian" is one I share as well. Jesus didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. Why does the message of the cross of Jesus Christ get whittled down to nothing more than happy thoughts about where we'll spend eternity? We all fall, struggle and fail in life, but it's through those trials that we become more Christ-like (James 1:2-4).

April 8, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterbergs

One more former English teacher weighing in that commas and periods always go inside closing quotation marks. Placement of exclamation points and question marks depends on whether the statement inside the quotation marks is the exclamation or question, or the whole statement of which it is a part is the exclamation or question.

By the way, before someone jumps on me, I know that the portion of the last sentence above after the last comma is not an independent clause, but it is always proper to use commas to increase clarity--in this case to distinguish the "or" connecting "exclamation" and "question" from the "or" connecting the two clauses.

All of this is simply to insure that Andy will never, ever again ask a grammar question.

April 12, 2006 | Unregistered Commenterthe Foolish Sage

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