Your Way versus the Official Way

I don’t like American punctuation.

The official approach to punctuation is “inconsistent and illogical,” such as the requirement that the comma in this sentence is included within the quotation marks. It makes no sense to me at all.

I like my punctuation to be “consistent and logical”, as if I’m writing code. For example, I want to add the closing quotation mark first, before adding the comma as a separator. I’ve been a developer. I like things to make sense.

In my book Management 3.0 I used the Official Nonsensical Punctuation (ONP). I desired to do so, because with my first book I felt the need to do everything “right”, as it was expected of a professional author.

With my new booklet How to Change the Word, and on my blog, I prefer to use Common Sense Punctuation (CSP). I believe I earned the right, because at least I proved I can also do punctuation the correct way, if needed.

If you want to do things “your way”, then go for it. But at least make sure you know why. And prove to the world that you know how to do things the “official” way, so we all know that you know what you’re talking about.