Dear Editor,
Sadly, consistency trumps diversity as a rule in the realm of punctuation. That said, a quote that begins with a quotation mark must end with one, and not with some other indicator, such as double spacing.
The quotation mark denoting the end of the Argus passage I quoted in my Sept. 19 open letter to Professor Pfister (“Response to Pfister”) has been deleted, the editor opting for double spacing. A reader could readily wonder where the Argus quote ends (“Now, Pfister claims, Americans have effectively turned 9/11 into a kind of commodity.”) and my reply begins (“And President Clinton, never one to table his priapic appetite’s importunings, effectively turned every woman into a kind of commodity.”)
However, pending the day the creatively challenged end their occupation of the Wespeak page, it isn’t all bad that its editor happens to have a penchant—a gift, let’s call it—for creative punctuation.
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