Grammar questions!

[hazliya]

Two things I argued with someone about and want backup on. Posed to you, my smart LJ friends:

1. In the case where a sentence ends with an 's' possessive, does the period go inside or outside of the apostrophe?

ex: She was in Stacie's room, not Jess'. vs. She was in Stacie's room, not Jess.'

2. When ending a sentence with 'etc.' or some other abbreviation, does the abbreviating period double as the end of the sentence or are two used?

ex: It was filled with candy, toys, noisemakers, etc. vs. It was filled with candy, toys, noisemakers, etc..

I need to know that I don't fail at english.

-Haz

Comments

[mariaklob.livejournal.com]

I'm not an authoritative source, technically, but...

1. An apostrophe never goes outside punctuation. Quotation marks sometimes go after a comma or period; apostrophes do not.

2. I've never doubled periods at the ends of sentences. That goes for any abbreviation. I recall more than one history text confusing me by talking about "Something involving the U.S. And continuing" without further marking between sentences.

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

1. Comma inside.

2. This only matters if you're writing a computer program, in which case you'd want two. For more readable usage, I'd go with one. The capitalization of the next sentence (and possible double space) is enough cue to differentiate the two sentences. Unless you're writing something experimental, in which case whatever you're doing probably has a specific reason anyways.

<3

first one in both cases

[chachachikka.livejournal.com]

it's '. not .' that's just silly. A period signifies the end of that sentence, nothing more comes after a period. Same goes for etc. That's the end, not abbrev. and then end the sentence again. It's like saying LOL! - it's not LOL!. Or well that's a crappy example, but that's the idea.

Re: first one in both cases

[chachachikka.livejournal.com]

Actually, here's a better example. O.K. would not be O.K..

[witeoutking.livejournal.com]

The only time a period/question/exclamation mark does not definitively end a sentence is when it is within a quote. The apostrophe would always come before the period. Your example would actually use "Jess's", due to how the word "Jess" is pronounced.

She was in Stacie's room, not the twins'.

Abbreviating a word such that it involves a period at the end of the sentence only keeps its period if the sentence ends in a question mark or exclamation point. If the sentence ends in a period, there is only one.

It was filled with candy, toys, noisemakers, etc.
It was filled with candy, toys, noisemakers, etc.?

[shadowravyn.livejournal.com]

I concur with witeoutking.

Part of the problem stems from different disciplines using different grammar. Seriously. It drives me nuts.