The very first rule listed in my Gregg Reference Manual reads as follows: "Use a period to mark the end of a sentence that makes a statement or expresses a command." Sentences end in a period (or other form of terminal punctuation). This is about as basic as it gets.
This morning I was told by one of our clients to not put a period after a URL even if it's at the end of a sentence, because people are too dumb to understand that it's there because it's the end of the sentence. They add it to the URL and then can't figure out why they're not getting to the website. And if the whole, "Hey, sentences have periods at the end of them!" thing weren't enough of a clue, has anyone ever seen a URL that ends with a period? Ever?
Aargh.
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4 comments:
Not to play the devil here or anything, but users are terminally stupid. As amazing as it sounds, they will put the period there far too often. I say this only after years of end user support. Do I think you're right, yes. Users are stupid though, it just can't be avoided. Pandering to the stupidity is not an option though.
Even if the web-ignorant end up putting in the period after .com or whatever the URL is, they will still get to the correct site. Shouldn't we be trying to set the best examples for them, so they can see and learn? *sigh*
Our addresses are clickable, so it's not a problem for us. And they are in red and underlined, but the period is black. Can you do somthing like that to differentiate between the two?
Yes, that's it exactly. You type in the period and don't get to the site? That should teach you not to type in the period. (Saff, you'll still get there for some sites, but not others.) I just don't think the answer is leaving off the period just because a handful of people out there are too stupid to learn this.
And Syl? That works great for e-communication, but not for print pieces where we're directing them to a website. We do always print the URL in bold and the period not bold, but that's pretty subtle.
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