Division by Zero

[Bruce Easton]

Jay R. Ashworth wrote Tuesday, June 19, 2007 4:36 PM:
> 
> On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 03:39:58PM -0400, Bruce Easton wrote:
> > Jeff Harrison wrote Tuesday, June 19, 2007 3:10 PM:
> > [..]
> > > missed it, but "thanks for responding".
> > [..]
> > > 
> > 
> > Didn't you mean:
> > 
> > missed it, but "thanks for responding."
> 
> No.  Jeff -- like me, most programmers, and almost all of Britain for the
> last 30 years -- uses "rational punctuation", [..]

Uh, oh - I must be showing my age, then. :)

[..] 
> where if a period ends a
> sentence, you put it at the end of the sentence.

That doesn't sound right (as a blanket rule), although I do see 
your point below.

In checking out today's London Times, I found most instances 
of the quote after the period at the end of a sentence.  But there 
was one article with the expression: 

   an Iranian newspaper called the Queen an "old crone".

which made me forget about what we were talking about here. :):)
But that seems to match what you are saying even though the 
source is not the person who said "old crone".  <--see, I'm practicing.
 

Bruce  

> Not inside a spurious
> quotation that happens to be the last thing in the sentence.

> 
> In this case, since they were 'scare' quotes, intended (I think) to
> imply mild irony mixed with mild sarcasm, there's even less reason to
> put the period inside.
> 
> We only do that because it typesets better.  (And alas, it does.)
>