Talk:logical quotation

"British" as another name for this practice

It is standard for dictionaries to include synonyms. Sources have been provided showing that "British style," "British practice," etc. is another name for logical punctuation (in fact, it's the standard name, and "logical" is the alternate), and there are many, many more that do so as well. I understand that you, @SMcCandlish don't believe that LP is really British—and, for anyone just joining us, I don't share that belief—but remember that Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. The practice is commonly called British, and that is all that the entry asserts.

To address your concerns, if you think it appropriate to add a line saying "but the propriety of calling it 'British' has been questioned by Expertperson of Suchandsuch," then provide a source for that. Be advised, I'd then think it appropriate to add a line about whether or not it's appropriate to call it logical. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:19, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

The sources that have been offered here do not show that British style and logical quotation are two different things. In fact, they show that they are the same.

Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies: "Punctuation marks are placed inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation; this system is referred to as logical quotation."

Scientific Style and Format: "In the British style (OUP 1983), all signs of punctuation used with words and quotation marks must be placed according to the sense."

I believe that the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition[1][2] describes both placement by original position and placement by sense, but it refers to both as "British," so it might not be the best source for an entry that's specifically about the "logical" name for this practice.

We should only describe these as two different practices if either of the following conditions can be met:

• A single reliable source (that is better than the ones that say they're the same) explicitly states something to the effect of "British practice and logical quotation differ in manner X."
• A large number of sources are lined up showing that most of the sources that describe the practice as "logical" say one thing and the ones that describe it as "British" say something else. (For example, if all the "logical" ones said "placement by original position" and all the "British" ones said "placement by sense." But there would have to be enough of them for us to consider JISS a fluke or outlier.) Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:58, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24 I think you may be confused. This is Wiktionary, not Wikipedia. Wiktionary has different verifiability standards, and the references you added do not, in fact, satisfy them. —CodeCat 00:09, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

@CodeCat Can you point me to the page showing Wikitionary's verifiability standards, please? I would also like to know in what way you believe the sources provided do not satisfy them. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:11, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

It's at WT:CFI. Basically, we don't require external sources at all, not in the way of Wikipedia. Instead, we require citations from actual texts that contain and use the word in question. In other words, to show that words exist, we look for "real life" use of the words. We don't accept sources that say a word exist or what it means. —CodeCat 00:15, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Oh! The Yagoda and Nichol sources do this! Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:21, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Here's a line from Yagoda: "But the main reason is that the British way simply makes more sense. Indeed, since at least the 1960s a common designation for that style has been 'logical punctuation.'"[3] So would this be an example of Yagoda using the term "British way" to refer to logical quotation, and in your opinion, @CodeCat, would something like this be enough to establish "British" as a synonym under Wikitionary's rules? Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:26, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Not exactly, because they use the term as "the British way". It's possible that they are simply referring to how the British use their quotes, so I don't see how that would be an unambiguous use of the term "British" in this meaning. It could be any of the other meanings we already have, like "of/related to Britain". By the way, if you want to know how to format citations, see WT:CITE. If you really want this term verified (which I don't think is that urgent), you could take it to WT:RFV, where others can help too. —CodeCat 00:30, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, at the moment I'm not finding a huge amount of usage evidence outside of the mentions in these articles. I think an RFV might work nicely. —JohnC5 00:35, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

EDIT CONFLICT Consider that this is a punctuation practice; a lot of people don't talk about it at all. In addition to Yagoda and Nichol, there's also David Marsh in The Guardian: [4]

How would you two feel about a sentence to the effect of, "This practice is standard/common in/part of British English" instead of "this is also called 'British practice'"?

In the meantime, should the text claiming that British and LQ are different, which I removed, stay out? Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:48, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

(after E/Cs) The phrase "British style" is trivially easy to attest as a designation of a punctuation style like the one this entry describes (see google books:"British style" punctuation), although in all of those books it seems to be SOP. (SOP, for our 'pedian colleagues, means "sum of parts": unidiomatic and hence not worthy of a dictionary entry since it just means the [[British]] + [[style]] of quotation/punctuation. Of course, if it were a synonym, it could still be listed, linked "British style" rather than "British style".) The question is whether or not "British style" refers to exactly the same thing as "logical quotation", and for that mentions can be helpful, especially because "logical quotation" is such a rare phrase that only one of the books I see at google books:"logical quotation" is actually using the term in this sense (and that one use features quotation marks around "logical" and hence also seems to be SOP, simply suggesting this style is logical). No books (AFAICT) use both terms, something which might have allowed us to determine their synonymity or non-synonymity, if e.g. a book said "logical or British style is _" or "logical quotation is not to be confused with British style". I think an RFV of both phrases (looking for idiomatic uses of them) could be helpful. - -sche (discuss) 00:41, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I found a few more. I'll check the citation criteria and see if any of them measure up. [5] [6] [7] Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:23, 11 September 2015 (UTC)