Tag: Britain

No, the comma does *not* always go before the closing quote mark – Logical Punctuation

‘The comma always goes before the closing quote mark.’

I’ve heard this a number of times over the last 7 years or so – mostly, but certainly not exclusively, from Americans.

And I had heard it in life before that too. I can’t remember exactly when I first heard it – I think it was possibly in secondary school, from one of my secondary school English teachers. But I do remember that when I first heard it, I immediately thought ‘That’s silly.’.

Consider the following sentence.

‘I think I like pears more than I like apples.’

Now let’s imagine that this is a line said by someone – a character in a novel, perhaps. Now, the ‘he said’ / ‘she said’ could be put at the end.

‘”I think I like pears more than I like apples.”, she said.’

Or we could split the sentence and put the ‘he said’ / ‘she said’ in the middle.

‘”I think”, she said, “I like pears more than I like apples.”‘

This illustrates the problem. That first comma in the line above – those who say ‘The comma always goes before the closing quote mark.’ would have it go before the first closing double quote mark – immediately after the word ‘think’.

But I think this is ridiculous. That comma is not part of the original sentence – what this person is actually saying. It is not part of the ‘inner sentence’ – it is part of the ‘outer sentence’. For clarity, I’ve written the same text again below, but coloured the ‘inner sentence’ green and the ‘outer sentence’ blue.

‘”I think“, she said, “I like pears more than I like apples.“‘

The double quote marks are the demarcations between the inner and outer sentences. You can join together all of the separately-quoted parts of the inner sentence to get back the original thing being quoted.

If we were to follow the ‘The comma always goes before the closing quote mark.’ rule, however, we would have:

‘”I think,“ she said, “I like pears more than I like apples.“‘

This is clearly less elegant. The inner and outer sentence are now mixed together across the quote marks.

So I would say that the correct rule is: only that which is part of the quote goes within the quote marks.

Now sure, commas are for adding structure to written language – we do not speak them. (Well, they sort-of represent pauses in spoken language, but it’s not a hard-and-fast rule, and they’re better understood as making clauses easier to recognise in written text.) But that structure is still either of the inner sentence or the outer sentence, and putting a comma in the inner sentence when it’s actually part of the outer sentence can change the meaning.

I learned a while ago that my preferred style of using punctuation is called logical punctuation. And apparently the other style – the comma-before-the-quote-mark style – is known as typographer’s punctuation, or something like that. I’m not too sure about these names. ‘Logical punctuation’ is a bit grandiose, even if it is more logical, and I don’t know why typographers would be expected to be so slapdash in their approach to punctuation. But apparently these are terms that are used.

I’ve also seen it said that logical punctuation is the British style, and the other way is the American style. I’ve certainly heard Americans advocate for the comma-before-the-quote-marks style more often. I’ve heard Britons insist upon it too, though whether this is just because of the cultural backwash we get from America, I can’t say.

But regardless of what the best names for these styles are, and regardless of whether the Britons or the Americans use one style more, it is better to use logical punctuation.

The main argument I hear in favour of the American style is ‘It looks better.’. There’s just something about the lower punctuation mark followed by the higher one that looks better than the inverse. While aesthetics are very important in language, to some extent (only some) what you like is just what you get used to over time, and aesthetics should generally not be at the expense of function and semantics. (There are exceptions, of course, but generally.)

Some would say that my approach is perhaps the product of a mathematical mind. (I am a physicist by training.) You can certainly see the appeal of logical punctuation to a mathematical mind – logical punctuation perfectly mimics the way brackets work in mathematics. However, this is somewhere where the penetrating orderliness of mathematics should influence human language. Using logical punctuation allows you to avoid a great many problems that arise if you try to use the American style. The American style generally applies not just to commas, but to all punctuation. Consider the following sentence.

‘What did he say after “You’re not supposed to do that?”‘

The typographer’s style advocates for putting that question mark before the closing double quote mark, as I’ve written it above. But is the question mark part of the inner sentence or the outer sentence? Or both? You can’t tell – but it changes the meaning. If the question mark is part of the inner sentence, the person being quoted is asking a question. If it’s not part of the inner sentence, the person being quoted is making a statement.

This is clearly a problem, and if you try to follow the American style for an entire book, you will run into variations of this problem over and over again – with no way to be both consistent and always unambiguous. (You might think the problem won’t come up very often, but it does – it comes up A LOT.)

Logical punctuation solves this easily. If the inner sentence is a statement, you write:

‘What did he say after “You’re not supposed to do that.”?’

and if it’s a question, you write:

‘What did he say after “You’re not supposed to do that?”?’

Some people might find it visually clumsy to have all those punctuation marks bundled together like that. But again, the aesthetics you can adjust to if you just get used to it – but the semantic issues of the typographer’s style cannot be cleanly resolved.

I hope that logical punctuation becomes more popular. Britons seem to be split on it. But I think it’s an easy rule to remember: only that which is part of the quote goes in the quote marks.

The 1996-2012 Cultural Zenith, and the 2012-2024 Cultural Nadir

For a number of years now, I have claimed that in Britain there was a cultural high-point that ended at the end of 2012, and that ever since we have been in a cultural wasteland. In this post, I would like to prove it.

One of the early indicators I got of this was the decline in good fantasy and science fiction shows on the BBC. I remember in the late 2000s we had both Merlin and Doctor Who on television at the same time. Both of these shows were great – I remember being so excited for new episodes, and upon seeing each new episode me and my friends would spend hours and hours talking about them. We also had the BBC’s Robin Hood series (which was flawed – just as Merlin and Doctor Who were – but still great).

Robin Hood ended in 2009, and Merlin ended in 2012 (with a finale that rather frustratingly lacked closure). And the thing is, I don’t think I know of any good fantasy television shows that have been on the BBC since Merlin ended. Doctor Who has continued, of course, but it has steadily gotten worse, and is now completely unwatchable. A lot of people liked Matt Smith’s Doctor, but I started to notice the cracks from his very first episode. (That’s a niche joke there. (And that’s another niche joke there – one for the etymologists.)) Matt Smith took over in 2010, and by the end of 2012 the show had really deteriorated – whenever I rewatch those 2000s episodes of Doctor Who, I often don’t make it through all the Matt Smith ones.

So by the end of 2012, Robin Hood was gone, Merlin was gone, and Doctor Who was crumbling. From 2013 to 2015, the BBC gave us Atlantis – a show specifically designed to fill the gap left by Merlin, and created by many of the same people. But despite having some AMAZING actors – including Robert Emms, Sarah Parish, and Mark Addy (one of my all-time favourite actors) – it just wasn’t very good. It just wasn’t written very well.

Quite frankly, the BBC seemed to give up on fantasy and science fiction. It was as though they thought it was too hard to make – or they looked down on it as a genre, as a number of middle class, not-quite-as-intelligent-as-they-think-they-are people do.

Of course, we had Game of Thrones to keep us occupied, but even that seemed to fall to the post-2012 corruption in the end. The last two seasons of that – it is generally agreed – are quite flawed, and some would say even season six had quite a few issues. That takes us back to season five, which aired in 2015 – only 3 years after 2012.

Another early indicator I got was the decline in good comedy shows on the BBC – and on other British networks, actually. This decline has been much sharper. In the 2000s (including 2010), we had Little Britain, The Catherine Tate Show, That Mitchell and Webb Look, Come Fly With Me, The Armstrong and Miller Show, Harry and Paul, Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe, Newswipe with Charlie Brooker, Peep Show, Green Wing, The IT Crowd (apart from the special), Gavin and Stacey (again, ignoring the specials), The Office, Extras, and even Coupling. That is A LOT.

What’s more, back then, Live At The Apollo was actually good. (I haven’t watched any of Live At The Apollo in years – they just kept inviting people on who weren’t very funny.) Back then is also the golden era of Mock The Week. Mock The Week continued for many years afterwards, of course, but it always seemed to be struggling to survive.

The first two series of Miranda were also in the 2000s (again, including 2010). The third series and the specials for Miranda were nowhere near as good as the first two series – something strange happened there. The early series of Not Going Out were also in the 2000s. (That’s had some great later episodes, but the early ones, for the most part, are better.)

Would I Lie To You was started in the 2000s – and again, those early episodes were great. (I haven’t watched any of the recent stuff – it just felt like it was going on and on.) QI! That was great when Stephen Fry was hosting it – again, mostly in the 2000s. I’ve watched almost none of it since Sandi Toksvig took over – it’s just terribly boring. (And think, all of the famous moments from the show – the ones that get watched over and over again on YouTube – are from Fry’s era.)

And Have I Got News For You was better back then too. Brian Blessed’s first appearance – which I think is the all-time high-point of the show – was in 2008. Nowadays HIGNFY is just awful – I can’t watch it. It’s mostly not funny – there’s just the odd weak pun that at most elicits a thought of ‘That’s funny.’, but no actual laughter and not even a half-smile. It feels like they’re just going through the motions. Ian and Paul know that the BBC’s never going to cancel it, so they’re just going to sit there, occasionally making a witty remark, until they’re too old and frail to walk on set anymore.

And what else have we had since 2012 that’s been any good? I mean we’ve had all of the Philomena Cunk stuff (where it’s her own show) – that’s been good. We’ve had 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown – a lot of the early stuff from that was good, although it’s deteriorated. There was also, briefly, 10 O’Clock Live and Live At The Electric – but those were quite early on since 2012. Other than that, what has there been?

The main comedy show that the BBC seems to have been pushing since that time is, of all things … Mrs Brown’s Boys. Jesus Fucking Christ. That show is one of the worst shows to have ever been created. Fuck it, it’s one of the worst things to have ever been created. I could write out a lengthy argument as to why it’s so absolutely fucking awful, but the reality is if you don’t already know why it’s awful, there’s no helping you. It’s the exact thing that was parodied by Ricky Gervais’ Extras – which the BBC themselves had aired just a few years before – but apparently having that template of what not to do did not help them.

Mrs Brown’s Boys should never have made it to air in the first place, and yet it seems to have been the BBC’s flagship comedy show for several years now.

So when it comes to comedy, we really are living through an absolute dearth of it.

I think I have already demonstrated that 2012 marks a boundary point – lots of good things had already finished by that point, and there aren’t that many good things that have come about since. But actually, the very first sign I got that we were entering a cultural nadir happened just a few minutes past midnight on New Year’s Eve / New Year’s Day going from 2012 to 2013.

2012 had been a great year for Britain. We had hosted the Olympic Games – at which we had won an extraordinary number of medals, and the opening and closing ceremonies were some of the best we’ve seen since the turn of the millennium (though they still had quite a few flaws). It was also the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee. Now, even though we got to see a Platinum Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth, the Diamond Jubilee was better – the Queen was able to do more for it, and the celebrations themselves were better. (I remember the barge.)

It felt like Britain was at its all-time peak. It felt like we could do anything. But I remember staying up ’til midnight on New Year’s Eve to watch the fireworks on television. (The fireworks have long since become tedious and obnoxious, but that’s a rant for another post.) Once the fireworks were over, the BBC played their new ident for 2013. ‘Love 2013’ it read. It was so underwhelming. I knew at that moment that we were about to start a decline.

So 2012 is the end-point of the zenith – when did it start? I put it in 1996. 1996 was the year that Pokémon came out. (Granted, Pokémon is not a British cultural creation, but we still had it here – and it was BIG. Everyone who is around my age remembers it from school – we all played the games, swapped the cards, and watched the movies. It had a profound cultural impact on my generation.) Also, the first Harry Potter book came out not long after – in 1997. And thus began the intense craze for Harry Potter. People who have grown up after that time could not possibly imagine what that was like. The obsession with and adoration for the Harry Potter books and films was like nothing we’ve seen ever since.

The first Harry Potter book came out in 1997, and the last Harry Potter film (with the films always lagging behind the books, of course) came out in 2011 – almost perfectly bookending my proposed era.

There has been nothing like Harry Potter in the years since – either in book form or movie form. Game of Thrones came close – and might well have gone down as one of the all-time great television series, had they not screwed up the ending. And of course, George R. R. Martin himself has not published any more of the book series (the last one being published in 2011 – making my point again). He is never going to finish that series. He’s had 13 years and he still hasn’t done the next one. He is never going to do it.

The 1996-2012 cultural zenith also includes the Lord Of The Rings movies, of course – which will be classics for many centuries. It even includes the Matrix films – which again were not a British cultural creation, but they still had a big impact here. (And of course, there are only three Matrix films.)

And my goodness it even includes the Star Wars Prequels. Some people don’t like the prequels, but their cultural impact cannot be denied. The number of iconic lines, characters, and pieces of music greatly outstrips the ‘sequel’ films that Disney made. I’ve long thought that you can tell how culturally impactful a movie is by how many memes it produces – and the prequels are used in memes every day.

And gosh, now that I think about it, this era mostly overlaps with Star Trek: Voyager. Again, a number of people don’t like Voyager, but I think it’s almost as good as The Next Generation, and certainly far, far superior to anything that’s been made in recent years.

And actually, that just shows how post-2012 has been characterised not just by an absence of good television shows and movies, but by a presence of bad ones. I’ve commented on this sort of thing many times, of course, but to list just some of the awful shows we’ve had post-2012 (and much of which is after about 2015/2016): Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks (and I’m sure the other Star Trek stuff has probably been shit as well, but I haven’t seen it), the Star Wars ‘sequels’, the Han Solo film, the Kenobi Show, The Acolyte (and again, I’m sure lots of the other Disney Star Wars stuff has been shit too, but I haven’t seen it), all of Doctor Who since Jodie Whittaker took over, all of the Fantastic Beasts films, most of the MCU films since Endgame (a common observation), Amazon’s Rings of Power, The Matrix 4. I could go on but really what’s the point.

Of course, much of this can be attributed to the deterioration of Hollywood that’s been going on from about 2015 / 2016 (although the process started much earlier). There’s a lot to be said about the interplay between American and British culture, but I won’t say it in this post.

But what has caused this current cultural nadir? Well, thinking specifically about Britain, I think it is in part because of a deterioration at the BBC. I have long thought that the BBC has lacked the ability and the determination to make good fantasy, science fiction, and comedy. A game show, a quiz show, a travel show, a cookery show, a dancing show, a soap opera, a rerun – these things are not difficult to conceive of. Good science fiction requires true insight, and a willingness to do what no-one else is doing. The BBC has long seemed far too conformist for that.

I think there are other, nebulous reasons for this cultural nadir too. Britain is not doing as well as it was in the 2000s. It is a grimmer place. This is partly economic – our economic situation is worse than it was 12 years ago. (I will not defer to statistics here, but I think we all sense it.) Britons are less able to take chances on creative projects. The causes of our economic misfortune are manyfold.

When will this current nadir end? I don’t know. It could go on for a LONG time yet. I couldn’t say if we’re past the worst of it. I think I’d know it if I saw the beginning of the end, but perhaps not. But I do think the solution has remained the same throughout: bringing about a new cultural zenith requires extraordinary determination and discernment from talented creatives.

All that is left is to name these eras, but I can’t think of any good ones – yet.

For the sake of clarity, I have listed below many of the aforementioned television shows and books that belong to this pre-2012 zenith and post-2012 nadir. (There is, of course, a certain ‘fuzziness’ to these endpoints.)

The 1996-2012 Cultural Zenith

  • The Vicar of Dibley (1994-2007)
  • Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)
  • The Harry Potter Books (1997-2007)
  • The Men in Black Movies (1997-2012)
  • Pokémon Red and Blue (EU: 1999)
  • The Star Wars Prequels (1999-2005)
  • The Matrix Movies (1999-2003 – there is no fourth movie)
  • Coupling (2000-2004)
  • The Office (2001-2003)
  • The Harry Potter Movies (2001-2011)
  • The Lord Of The Rings Movies (2001-2003)
  • Shrek (2001)
  • Look Around You (2002-2005)
  • That Mitchell and Webb Sound (2003-2013)
  • Little Britain (2003-2004 – the first two series)
  • Peep Show (2003-2015)
  • QI (with Stephen Fry – 2003-2016)
  • The Catherine Tate Show (2004-2007)
  • Green Wing (2004-2007)
  • The Incredibles (2004)
  • The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)
  • Extras (2005-2007)
  • Doctor Who (before it became shit, 2005-2010 (-ish))
  • The Thick Of It (2005-2012)
  • Mock The Week (2005-2022 – its golden era was earlier on)
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008)
  • That Mitchell and Webb Look (2006-2010)
  • Hyperdrive (2006-2007)
  • The IT Crowd (2006-2013)
  • Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe (2006-2008)
  • Robin Hood (2006-2009)
  • Harry & Paul (2007-2012)
  • The Armstrong & Miller Show (2007-2010)
  • Gavin & Stacey (2007-2010, ignoring the specials)
  • Merlin (2008-2012)
  • Newswipe with Charlie Brooker (2009-2010)
  • Miranda (2009-2010 – first two series only)
  • Avatar (2009)
  • Come Fly With Me (2010)
  • Him & Her (2010-2013)
  • Twenty-Twelve (2011-2012)
  • 10 O’Clock Live (2011-2013)
  • Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee (2012)
  • The London Olympic Games (2012)
  • Live At The Electric (2012-2014)

The Post-2012 Cultural Nadir

  • Mrs Brown’s Boys (2011-now)
  • Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
  • Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
  • Doctor Who (Whittaker and after – 2017-now)
  • The Mash Report (2017-2022)
  • Star Trek: Discovery (2017-2024)
  • Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
  • Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
  • Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
  • Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
  • Aladdin (2019)
  • Captain Marvel (2019)
  • Star Trek: Picard (2020-2023)
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020-2024)
  • Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett (2021-2022)
  • WandaVision (2021)
  • The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021)
  • Loki (2021-2023)
  • Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
  • Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)
  • Star Wars: The Kenobi Show (2022)
  • She-Hulk (2022)
  • Amazon’s The Rings Of Power (2022-2024)
  • Star Wars: Ahsoka (2023)
  • Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024)
  • and more …

New Project: A Dictionary of British Place Names

I have started a new project today. In short, it is a small web-app giving information on the etymology of British place names. I’ve made it a sub-site of my main website – you can view it here: http://benjamintmilnes.com/dictionary-of-british-place-names/#/.

I decided to do this project quite spontaneously this morning. The idea’s been floating around in my head for a few days or so. I’m normally quite reluctant to start new projects of this kind nowadays – I have a lot of projects – too many, really – and each new project takes time away from the others. However, this project is quite valuable for the world-building for On The Subject Of Trolls, and it is relatively simple to do, so I decided to start it.

Amazingly, I’ve managed to get it to a ‘finished’ state in just a few hours. Now, when I say ‘finished’ here, I don’t necessarily mean absolutely complete in all ways. I find it useful to distinguish between different kinds of ‘finished’. A part of this project is actually researching and writing out the etymology for all or lots of British place names. (I may not do absolutely all British place names – I may only do a few hundred or a few thousand in total.) This is something that is very difficult to do all in one go – this is something that’s better to do gradually over time, so I don’t include this in what I mean by ‘finished’. Similarly, with any web-app, there are often hundreds of features that you could program into it – I don’t include these in ‘finished’ either. With projects like this, I generally consider them finished when I have something that I can put online, that works (even if it only has a limited number of features), that looks polished, and that contains well-formed data (even if it’s only a small amount of data). In the case of this project, I have managed to create 11 data files for place names, create the compiler (which takes those data files and outputs a JSON file that the web-app effectively uses as its database), and create a polished front-end.

So the web-app is now online and available. It describes the etymology of various British place names. In future you will be able to search for place names that have a particular suffix or that have a particular element in them. There are other fun features that it could have too – like rendering a map of Britain using the names that places had in a given century. It only contains a few entries so far, but I will add to that over time.

This is a very fun project to do. I have liked etymology for a long time – I can’t remember when it was that I started looking things up on etymonline.com several times a day – probably about seven or eight years ago – but it has been a fascination of mine for a long time. Place names is an area of etymology that is somewhat lacking online – it’s fun being able to create something new that’s useful.