I asked, "Do Brits generally use ... rather than learned, spelled, etc.?

It seems weird to have a period immediately followed by a question mark, yet I don't know which should be omitted. What is correct here?

I'd punctuate it as have you (or recast the sentence to avoid the problem)

An interesting question. Personally I tend to omit the full stop and keep to just the question mark. I've no idea if I'm technically right or not because when I went to school the finer points of grammar weren't part of the syllabus. However, it seems to me that the conclusion of a question is also the natural end to the sentence, therefore, the question mark serves to illustrate that the sentence is over as well as highlighting the type of sentence it was. I'm not sure it's possible to have a question mark in the middle of a sentence or at least I can't think of an example off the top of my head. No doubt you'll all now prove me wrong.

Yes. But the point here is that the full stop at the end of etc. serves to show that it is an abbreviation. It does, though, look strange if it's followed by a question mark or some other punctuation.

It seems to me that the full stop "wears two hats," i.e. serves both as the abbreviation indicator and as the stop. A second one is redundant.

I take your point Richard. My natural instinct would be to go with Asa in that the second stop is redundant therefore only the question mark is required. However, as grammer was probably far more important when you went to school I will happily bow to your superior knowledge.

One could always spell out et cetera. People usually don't have a problem with a comma after the period of abbreviation: the use of etc., et al., and ibid. are forbidden.

I agree with Richard. I don't think the question mark after the full stop looks at all funny. You can't eliminate the first full stop (hell, period to us yanks) because it's part of the abbreviation, and you can't eliminate the second because it's part of the question mark. I'm not sure if it would be correct if it weren't a question and there were two periods.

That's a good question to submit to the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), though I doubt our British friends would accept CMS's ruling, unless it agreed with their thinking. Anyway, if you want to submit it, Wordnerd, go to the above link, scroll down the left (gray) side and click on "Submit a question for the Q&A."

Tinman

Duly submitted, tinman. However, they don't give individual answers, but simply advise you to "check our site monthly, in case your question is chosen." So we'll each keep an eye on it.

I agree with Asa that, if the sentence had been a declaration rather than a question, a single period would have "done double duty" and sufficed both to end the abbreviation and to end the sentence. Darn! I should have included that in my question to CMS.

What a good question! Until I got to Asa's post about 2 periods, I was all in favor of the period and the question mark. Now I wonder.

I used to have the same questions with quotations. Here was Bob's explanation about double punctuations with quotation marks. For those 4 sentences near the bottom, there are double punctuations at the end of each sentence, and they are grammatically correct. After Bob posted that, I understood that concept better.

This from the folks at Chicago Manual of Style. The question I posted was,

Quote: "Do Brits generally use learnt, spelt, etc. rather than learned, spelled, etc.?" It seems weird to end with a period immediately followed by a question mark, yet I don't know which should be omitted. What is correct here?

Their reply:

The mark at the end of "etc." is not a sentence period; it's an abbreviation mark that represents missing letters. Therefore it cannot be eliminated. The end of your sentence is fine.

Thank you for writing--
Staff

That clears that up then!

quote:

Originally posted by Doad:
Personally I tend to omit the full stop and keep to just the question mark.

So do I since i've been taught by him!

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
. For those 4 sentences near the bottom, there are double punctuations at the end of each sentence, and they are grammatically correct. After Bob posted that, I understood that concept better.

Actually no they aren't. The point was that almost no style guide or grammarian would agree with them. (In fact I'd be surprised if any of them do.) What they are is grammatically logical and they are what I would prefer to see.

I can't believe that any of you put a full stop at the end of etc anyway. It looks antiquated.

quote:

It looks antiquated.

It might look antiquated; it also looks correct. UK English rules of abbreviation state that the full stop is necessary when the abbreviation does not end with the same letter as the abbreviated word.

Thus Mr (for Mister) but etc. (for et cetera). US rules are different.

It looks antiquated.

What's wrong with antiques? That's why I prefer: &c sine puncto.

quote:

Actually no they aren't.

I guess I didn't understand it better then.

quote:

Originally posted by Purdie:So do I since i've been taught by him!

I think what is of far more importance is that you learn that the pronoun 'I' is always a capital letter. I hope that a comment on here is more effective than the comments in your exercise book that are ignored!

quote:

I think what is of far more importance is that you learn that the pronoun 'I' is always a capital letter.

See my posting elsewhere.

The insidious outlawing of the capital letter derives directly from the texting phenomenon. Telephone keypads are a poor substitute for a proper keyboard and one of their most significant deficiencies is that punctuation marks, and word capitalisation, are relatively difficult to contrive. Thus has a new lexicon been created - txt-spk.

Like the telegraphese lexicon of the last century, it is a perfectly valid language when used in texting. However, its place should remain firmly in texts, not on the printed page nor yet on bulletin boards. Like telegraphese it has no place, and no purpose, outside its medium.