Folk in Europe and America: punctuation in quotations?

[justcarol67]

Dina Lerret wrote:
>
> As a follow-up to the whole 'make your post legible' bit, I'm
noticing a trend in fanfic where writers aren't including 'concluding'
punctuation like a comma or period.  I've seen exclamation and
question marks, but the commas and periods are disappearing.  This
tendency is more prevalent among European fans, including the UK.  For
example, a UK fanfic writer, Annie:
> 
> "Hey" Jensen opened one eye and grabbed the hand stroking his face
> "You are looking better"
> 
> 
> It's not just her; I'm encountering this among a variety of writers.
> She uses periods and commas elsewhere but not in quotations.  I know
> grammar differs in various countries and America may have its own
> 'bastardized' version of English, but I thought, at least, the UK
> didn't completely drop commas and periods in their quotes?  Is this
> trait something new or something older?  I was in high school during
> the early to mid 90s and that was the last of my formal education
> (college dropout).
> 
> I'm asking because I proofread over fics--you could say I'm a 'fic
intake' person for a site, which is ironic considered I nearly failed
grammar in school--and I do begin to wonder about these things.  It's
possible to say humans are lemmings by nature: we're taught to follow
by example.  So, if readers see writers drop punctuation and then they
become writers, it's likely some of them will pick up that habit as well.
> 
> Dina
>

Carol responds:
If I find missing punctuation on any of the manuscripts submitted to
me for copyediting, I'll supply it. As far as I'm concerned, the
sentence you quoted contains a triple punctuation error (not to
mention that "you are" rather than "you're" is too pompous for
dialogue and should be changed. Of course, I don't deal in fanfic!

Carol, reminding Dina of what happens to lemmings, at least according
to folklore, and hoping she won't become one :-)