[LINK] grammar nazis

[Craig Sanders]

On Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 03:38:18PM +1000, Ivan Trundle wrote:
> I've spent years (literally) editing people's full-stop omissions back
> into sentences. I don't understand why a sentence ending with a URL
> can't have a full-stop to signify the end of the sentence. Why do so
> many people shy away from it? And e-mail addresses, too!

because when it's a choice between ambiguity (i.e "is the final . part
of the URL or not?") and punctuation, the correct choice is in favour of
clarity.

in fact, as a general rule, clarity in communication is more important
than anything else - punctuation, spelling, spacing, formatting, etc.
there's not much point in writing if what you write comes across as
incomprehensible gibberish (unless that's what you intended, of course).

> (yes, I know that http://mysite.com.au/index.html. is likely to fail  
> when http://mysite.com.au/index.html was intended, 

exactly.

> but surely there isn't a single internet-capable person on the planet
> who can't work that out?)

unfortunately, there are many who can't.  they're probably in the majority.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>           (part time cyborg)