Subject: Re: Question about grammmer for RFCs

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 16:17:50 -0700 (PDT)

*> 
  *> (my sympathies for the basic point - I have also commented to the RFC 
  *> Editor about the lack of a clear referent for their style guidelines - I, 
  *> too, have been taught in school to omit the optional comma.)
  *> 
  *>                      Harald

Harald,

There are two schools of thought among English experts on the comma
before the last item in a series.  [This may be a UK/US difference,
generally.]

Although the particular (popular) style books we consult agree on the
need for the comma, there is a more important issue.  The comma is
sometimes needed to remove ambiguity.  The phrase "A, B, C and D" may
(and sometimes does) have a different meaning than "A, B, C, and D".

Thus:
	{A, B, {C, D}} may differ from {A, B, C, D}

The RFC Editor prefers the comma form to avoid the possible ambiguity.

Note also that all style guides say that a comma or period must be
inside a quotation.  However, in IETF technical documents the quotation
may be a literal string, and the period/comma must be outside the
quotation.  Hence, we deliberately ignore the style guides in this
case.

Whatever happened to rough consensus and running code?

Bob Braden for the RFC Editor

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:38:07 +0200

Bob Braden wrote:
...
> inside a quotation.

I don't think so, on this side of the Atlantic anyway. But the real
point, I think, is that sentences that are ambiguous, in such a way
that the placement of a comma becomes a critical issue, probably need
to be rewritten anyway.

Or to put it more clearly as an example:

Sentences in which a comma changes the meaning need to be rewritten.

    Brian

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From: "T.J.Kniveton" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 14:35:05 -0700

On Jul 15, 2004, at 12:38 AM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

> I don't think so, on this side of the Atlantic anyway.

It's a standard English rule.

> But the real

I strongly disagree with that last statement.

TJ

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From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 15:53:24 -0700

> It's a standard English rule.

Actually, it's an American vs. British thing.

>From the Chicago Manual of Style S 5.13:

     The British style of positioning periods and commas in relation
     to the closing quotation mark is based on the same logic that in
     the American system governs the placement of question marks and
     exclamation points: if they belong to the quoted material, they
     are placed within the quotation mark; if they belong to the
     including sentence as a whole they are placed after the quotation
     mark.

Note that I'm not arguing for one practice or the other.

-Ekr

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From: "The Purple Streak, Hilarie Orman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 17:54:28 -0600

This really ticks me off
   Re: Question about grammmer for RFCs

Hilarie

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From: Paul Hoffman / VPNC <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 17:45:26 -0700

>    Re: Question about grammmer for RFCs

Does the extra "m" go inside or outside the quotes?

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

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From: "The Purple Streak, Hilarie Orman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 20:29:27 -0600

Sorry about the confusing subject line, corrected above.  I just got
too ticked off.

Thanks for help, Paul.

Hilarie