site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   2384 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 4, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

In the culture-war thread, @Gdanning says:

According to this, "Median household income in 2021 was $69,880[.]"

Note the placement of square brackets around the period that was inserted at the end of the quote. As a person who semi-regularly glances through court opinions during idle time at work, I feel like this practice was only recently adopted by jurists, as a replacement for the previous style (which misleadingly implies that the period is native to the quote):

According to this, "Median household income in 2021 was $69,880."

And I feel very annoyed that it was chosen by those jurists over the obvious alternative:

According to this, "Median household income in 2021 was $69,880".

The sensible option is clearly:

According to this, "Median household income in 2021 was $69,880[.]".

The quote is its own sentence, but also part of another one; thus two periods.

The only reason for the quote mark in the original example is because the sentence must end with a period but the quote doesn’t have one (there is a question of what to do if the quote does have a period, but in that case the usual answer is just to leave it out anyway).

There are several problems with this:

  1. It falsely implies, as the OP says, that the period is native to the quoted sentence when it is not.

  2. It doesn’t adequately end the sentence that encapsulates the quote, which continues after the quotation marks end until the final punctuation.

  3. It looks ugly, there isn’t a need for brackets when quotation marks and a period suffice completely.

A direct quote seems an interruption in a sentence rather than its continuation. That’s why quotes can have different grammar to the encapsulating sentence, they can have different spelling (eg. an American directly quoting a British writer might use the British English -ise spelling of some words that have -ize endings in US English) and so on. The original sentence always needs to be finished for clarity, ending the quotes and then writing a period serves that function.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats