[–] 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 child)

In the US, the punctuation is supposed to be inside of the quotes, even if that punctuation wasn't actually part of what's being quoted. So if somebody says "your mother sews socks that smell," the quoted partial bit would be typed as "your mother sews socks." In Britain it would be "your mother sews socks". The difference might not be really obvious visually; it's whether that period (which is required to end the sentence) is before the end quote or after it. Apparently programmers in the US (like I used to be) have gravitated towards the British style because with string variables (which are generally delimited by quotes) you can't be farting around with adding phantom punctuation inside the quotes, even if it is grammatically correct here.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 hours ago (4 children)

    I never even heard of an em dash until I started reading about AI. I was just using hyphens everywhere I was apparently supposed to be using em dashes. I am a stickler for grammar and correct punctuation (except for punctuation inside quotes which my internal programmer won't allow me to do the American way) so I've started using em dashes -- and now people think I'm an AI.

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  • [–] 4 points 16 hours ago

    I grew up in Ohio in the '70s. We would get our first snow in late September and by the end of October the ground would have permanent snow cover. We wouldn't see grass again until some time in April with the last snow coming in May. The giant mounds of plowed snow would last into June. It's hard for me to even imagine a six-month Winter now, but that's what we got.

    In Summer the "heat wave" was when it got to 85°F during the day.

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