Ed Huntress wrote:
The same style is largely followed in Canada. British style is
complex, based upon the American style for some journalism (but
not _The Economist_) and fiction, but the so-called "logical"
style for formal works. In that, the period goes outside of any
complete quotation, but the strict version reverses the use of
single (') and double (") quotation marks.

Is that the other error?

I'm getting lost in this conversation. d8-) IIRC, I first thought
there was another error, in which you missed placing a comma before a
coordinating conjunction. But then I realized it was a subordinating
conjunction, which doesn't require one.

I didn't know there was any conjunction at all.


I forget. If you want me to go back and look it up, I'll do so. Having
raised this silly piece of pedantry I feel responsible, if you care,
to get it right.

Now I'm curious about the conjunction.

Here it is again: "The correct word is 'proofreader.'"

Is that right, even though single quotes now replace the double quotes?


Semicolons are a (re)invention of a 17th-century typesetter, who
wanted a pause longer than a comma but shorter than a colon. It had
fallen into disuse until he revived it.

Two independent clauses, or as you say, two sentences, are rarely
punctuated in speech with a pause as long as a semicolon. It sounds a
bit melodramatic. Thus, there are some well-regarded writers who
refuse to use it. Kurt Vonnegut had a lifelong, one-man crusade
against them.
You'll see such clauses punctuated with commas from time to time, and
the pause feels right to me. If punctuation is intended to replicate
the pauses and emphases in speech (most linguists agree that it is),
the comma is closer to the way we actually say such sentences.

I never thought of it as a matter of pause duration. The difference between
a sentence or clause and a phrase is more than that. Speech varies in speed
in so many ways, but we can't put periods or even semicolons everywhere
there's a long pause.


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