Brer alexander koryagin wrote to Brer Roy Witt about Re: 3xHa!:

 ak>>> Three boys from different countries met in some place. "Do you
 ak>>> know," said the boy from Germany, "my grandfather is a priest and
 ak>>> everybody calls him a holy father."

 RW>> Hmmmm. Does Priest equate to Catholic here? Unless the grandfather
 RW>> became a priest in his latter years, he couldn't have produced any
 RW>> offspring because once he becomes a priest, he is married to the
 RW>> church's founder.

 ak>     But, IMHO, any layman can become a monk and then get any rank of
 ak> Church hierarchy.

Why must it be a 'humble' opinion when that is fact.

 ak> So, a priest could have children before his priesthood and have a
 ak> grandson.

That's what I said.

 ak>>> "It's nothing," said the boy from Japan, "my grandfather is a Zen
 RW>> "That's nothing", said the boy from Japan, - note the placement of
 RW>> the comma and quotation marks in my correction/quote.

 ak>     IMHO, you've contradicted to punctuation rules.

OK.

 ak> The way you put the comma after the quotation mark is described in a
 ak> British English

Yuk...I'm not British...

 ak> punctuation guide. But quotation (q.) marks must be different. It's
 ak> like this:

 ak> British punctuation:
 ak> 'It's nothing', said the boy from Japan, 'my grandfather is a Zen
 ak> guru'.

Why are you using apostrophes when you are quoting what someone has said?

 ak> American punctuation:
 ak> "It's nothing," said the boy from Japan, "my grandfather is a Zen
 ak> guru."

 ak>     So if we use a double q. mark ["] we should use US punctuation
 ak> rules, but if we use a single q. mark ['] we should use British
 ak> punctuation.

???? Quotation marks and Apostrophes are not meant to be used as you
suggest.

 ak> In the American variant ['] is an additional q. mark, in the British
 ak> variant ["].

No, The (') mark is normally used to indicate the omission of one or more
letters from a printed word. Yesterdays example; Br'er for Br[oth]er.

But, a lot of times in a written medium such as Fidonet, sometimes there
is no way to express the actual quotation since it is out of mind, thus I
use the apostrophe to indicate a paraphrased version of the actual wording
used by the original writer or speaker.

Example:

Quote: President Ronald Reagan once said; "Man is not free unless
government is limited." - Ronald Reagan

Paraphrased: The same meaning can be understood using less verbiage;
'Men are free when government is limited.'

 ak> Examples:

 ak> British punctuation:
 ak> 'It's nothing', said the boy, 'my grandfather calls it "monkey
 ak> business"'.

 ak> American punctuation:
 ak> "It's nothing," said the boy, "my grandfather calls it 'monkey
 ak> business.'"

 ak> So my punctuation is American.

Not.

 ak>>> guru and even Emperor touches his feet."

 ak>                ^the

 ak>     Well, but I know that "President" is used without "the." It is
 ak> the case when we speak of a unique state post and we write
 ak> "President" with the fist capital letter. Should we do the same for
 ak> Emperor?

It depends on how you use the word President. If you're speaking about
what a President says or does, then you use 'the' before President or
Emporer.

If you are speaking of the President or an Emporer as a person you can
leave off 'the'. As in; President Bush (#1) said; "Read my lips! No new
taxes!"

 ak> IMHO there is no logic, but, IMHO, the first capital letter in
 ak> President/Emperor implies uniqueness and "the" becomes unnecessary.

The president of Cambridge College is not addressed the same as the
President of a country. You can put that into practice with the word
emporer too.

         R\%/itt - K5RXT

 Reminder: "On Friday September 8th 2006, Mike Godwin's 16 year experiment
 was concluded and Godwin's Law was officially repealed by a MAJORITY vote
 among millions of individuals." http://repealgodwin.tripod.com/

--- GoldED+/W32 1.1.5-31012
--- D'Bridge 3.92
 * Origin: Lone-Star BBS - San Antonio, Texas - USA (1:387/22)