Originally, typewriters had monospaced fonts (skinny letters and fat letters took up the same amount of space), so two spaces after ending punctuation marks such as the period were used to make the text more legible. However, most computer fonts present no difficulty with proportion or legibility, so use just one space after a period, colon, question mark, or exclamation point at the end of a sentence. You will not be struck by lightning, we promise!<\/p>\n
In several English-speaking countries other than the USA, a period used with quotation marks follows logic.<\/p>\n
Examples:
\n<\/strong>
\nMyrtle said the word \u201cdarn\u201d.<\/em>
\nThe period is outside the quotation marks because only the last word was quoted, not the entire sentence.<\/p>\nMyrtle said, \u201cI would never say that.\u201d<\/em>
\nThe period went inside the quotation marks because this was Myrtle\u2019s entire statement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nToday, in American English usage, the period\u00a0always<\/strong>\u00a0goes inside the quotation marks.<\/p>\n
Example:<\/strong><\/p>\n
Myrtle said the word \u201cdarn.\u201d
\n<\/em>This does not follow logic, but it makes life easier for those of us who have enough to think about besides punctuation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nForming plurals in English<\/h2>\n
As time has gone on, we have shortened some words and dropped the former plural form.<\/p>\n
Example:<\/strong><\/p>\n
The words\u00a0<\/em>memo\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>memos\u00a0used to be\u00a0<\/em>memorandum\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>memoranda.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
With the word\u00a0data<\/em>, we no longer see the singular\u00a0datum<\/em>\u00a0used at all.\u00a0Data<\/em>\u00a0is now often seen with both singular and plural verbs, although the word is considered strictly plural by purists.<\/p>\n
Examples:<\/strong><\/p>\n
The <\/em>data\u00a0are being tabulated.<\/em><\/p>\n
The\u00a0<\/em>data\u00a0is useful to the scientists.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yet other words still retain their original spelling and plural form.<\/p>\n
Example:<\/strong><\/p>\n
curriculum\u00a0(singular) and<\/em>\u00a0curricula\u00a0(plural)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Beginning\u00a0sentences with\u00a0but<\/em>,\u00a0and<\/em>,\u00a0because<\/em><\/h2>\n
In \u201cthe old days,\u201d you may have been scolded for starting a sentence with\u00a0but<\/em>,\u00a0and<\/em>, or\u00a0because<\/em>. But you wouldn\u2019t have deserved that scolding. If you start sentences with these words, it\u2019s usually a good idea to follow them with independent clauses.<\/p>\n
Examples:<\/strong><\/p>\n
But she would never say such a thing!<\/em><\/p>\n
Because of this bee sting, my arm is swollen.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spacing after periods, colons, question marks, and exclamation marks Originally, typewriters had monospaced fonts (skinny letters and fat letters took up the same amount of space), so two spaces after ending punctuation marks such as the period were used to make the text more legible. However, most computer fonts present no difficulty with proportion or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,15,46,47,22,26,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apostrophes","category-colons","category-periods","category-question-marks","category-quotation-marks","category-singular-vs-plural","category-subject-and-verb-agreement"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2730"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6652,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions\/6652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}