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From: alexander koryagin <koryagin@erec.ru>

Hi, Roy Witt!
I read your message from 11.10.2013 14:19

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

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

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

    Me not. But some people do.

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

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

On this subject look here:
http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/quotat...

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

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

<skipped>
    Where to put commas and full stops in quotations:

    The US style quoting (pay attention to the commas after q/ marks):
http://www.write.armstrong.edu/handouts/Quota...
(All full stops and commas are put inside q. marks)

    British style quoting:
http://grammartips.homestead.com/inside.html
(logic is used)


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

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

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

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

    Probably the rule is, that if we speak of a particular president and 
it is perfectly clear what a man we mean, we can omit "the" (and write 
the word with a capital letter).

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

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

    Here we can say, that there are a lot of universities and 
presidents. So we shall use "the" in the sentence you quoted. But if a 
student from Cambridge College tells about the president of his college, 
he probably does it without "the."

So, it seems that when the Japanese boy (from the story) told about 
Emperor he implied Japan. Else he should say "the Japanese Emperor." 
Shouldn't he?

Bye, Roy!
Alexander Koryagin
fido7.english-tutor 2013
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