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The guide is for American punctuation. The author has a page explaining the British versus American styles here: http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/british-ver

The guide is for American punctuation. The author has a page explaining the British versus American styles here: http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/british-versus-american-style.html http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/british-versus-american-s...

open-source-ux 9y ago
Not mentioned in the guide: in the UK very few people use the term 'parentheses', instead they just say brackets. Similarly, 'curly braces' is simply 'curly brackets'. And following on from that, you have 'square brackets' (same as US). UK: - Brackets () - Curly brackets {} - Square brackets [] US: - Parentheses () - Curly braces {} - Square brackets []
- AlbertoGP 9y ago
  Thanks for this! I'm Spanish, live in Germany, and speak English regularly with other non-native speakers: this causes a lot of confusion. What I've ended up doing: - Parentheses () - Braces {} - Brackets [] It's good to know that, however economic this might look to me, it's still likely to be misunderstood or at least ambiguous even to native speakers.
dghf 9y ago
A couple of things that page doesn't get quite right: > Mr., Mrs., and Ms. all take periods in American English. In British English, the periods are omitted. Common British practice omits full stops after any abbreviation (not just these three titles) where the last letter is the same as the last letter of the unabbreviated word: so Dr, Lt, hr aren't followed by full stops but Prof., Capt., sec. are. In fact it's becoming more and more common to omit full stops after abbreviations entirely: this is the Guardian's house style, for example. > British usage dictates a period between the hours and minutes when writing the time (e.g., 10.30). American usage dictates a colon (e.g., 10:30). Usage varies, but a colon is far more common with the 24-hour clock (e.g. 15:00 rather than 15.00).

open-source-ux 9y ago

Not mentioned in the guide: in the UK very few people use the term 'parentheses', instead they just say brackets. Similarly, 'curly braces' is simply 'curly brackets'. And following on from that, you have 'square brackets' (same as US). UK: - Brackets () - Curly brackets {} - Square brackets [] US: - Parentheses () - Curly braces {} - Square brackets []

AlbertoGP 9y ago
Thanks for this! I'm Spanish, live in Germany, and speak English regularly with other non-native speakers: this causes a lot of confusion. What I've ended up doing: - Parentheses () - Braces {} - Brackets [] It's good to know that, however economic this might look to me, it's still likely to be misunderstood or at least ambiguous even to native speakers.

dghf 9y ago

A couple of things that page doesn't get quite right: > Mr., Mrs., and Ms. all take periods in American English. In British English, the periods are omitted. Common British practice omits full stops after any abbreviation (not just these three titles) where the last letter is the same as the last letter of the unabbreviated word: so Dr, Lt, hr aren't followed by full stops but Prof., Capt., sec. are. In fact it's becoming more and more common to omit full stops after abbreviations entirely: this is the Guardian's house style, for example. > British usage dictates a period between the hours and minutes when writing the time (e.g., 10.30). American usage dictates a colon (e.g., 10:30). Usage varies, but a colon is far more common with the 24-hour clock (e.g. 15:00 rather than 15.00).