Bull's Eye Business Writing Tips

Tip # 442:  “Off vs. “From”

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Tip #442:  “Off vs. “From”: When you take something off a person, you take it from the surface of their body.  When you take something “from” a person, you take it from their possession. 

Examples: 

Henry took the pin off Shirley’s sweater.

She took the pin from Henry.

Weekly Exercise:

We receive over 200 emails per day.  We encourage you to answer our weekly tips, but please, if you are answering this weekly tip exercise,  identify the tip number in the subject line of your email.

This week’s quiz:

Please answer Vianne’s question regarding punctuation and quotation marks.

I love your newsletter. You always provide us with great food for thought :) I appreciate the amount of work you put into your tips.

I have a question about the use of punctuation and quotes. I have always been taught to place punctuation inside quotations only if the punctuation applies to and was used inside the quotation. i.e. if the quote ended with a period, then I would "place the period within the quotation." But when I am using the quote "as part of a sentence", then I would place the punctuation outside of the quotation.

I am now being told that the "correct way of doing it," is to always "place the punctuation inside the quotation marks." I am just verifying if this is in fact "the correct way of doing it," or if it's a "matter of personal preference".  Could you shed some light on this subject?

Quote of the week:

“Necessity is an interpretation, not a fact.”  (Fredrich Nietzche, 19th century German philosopher)

Suggested Answer to this week's exercise:

Here is a quote from The Gregg Reference Manual, "Periods and commas always go inside the closing quotation marks.  This is the preferred American style.  Periods and commas also go inside the single closing quotation mark."

Notice that the sentence above uses the inside punctuation.  Some writers follow the British style that places the period outside when it punctuates the whole sentence, inside when it punctuates only the quoted material.

To send the above exercise answers to Gloria for her comments and review,  copy the questions,  paste  them into an email, answer them,  and send to Marsha@basic-learning.com.

 

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By Gloria Pincu, M.A. , President of Basic Learning Systems, Inc.
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Here are some books on business writing that I recommend.

Bull's Eye Business Writing is also available from Amazon.com.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, author, Lynne Truss The Everything Resume Book by Steven Graber
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , by William Knowlton Zinsser  The Gregg Reference Manual, by William A. Sabin 
The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, White, E. B. White  How to Take the Fog Out of Business Writing, by Robert Gunning, Richard A. Kallan (Contributor) 

More books on business writing and other business subjects  (available from Amazon.com). 

Contact Gloria Pincu at Basic Learning Systems, Inc.

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