> > Sitcoms and commercials, on the other hand, do tick me off. The women are always on the ball, and the men are big dumb brutes. That's not progress.
>
> I agree. Most of that sexist stuff is funny and that's what it's usually intended to be. But how can I break my wife of saying, "It's a guy thing."? It lost it's humor after a couple of hundred repetitions.
> (Note: I realize that ."? in that second sentence is not used correctly, but if I had used the ? in the right place, it would have put the wrong inflection on her statement.)
> Howard

Which is why the American way of putting closing punctuation inside quotation marks when the mark in question is not part of the quotation is so vexing!

Nonsensical American version: ... but how can I break my wife of saying "It's a guy thing?"

vs

British: ... but how can I break my wife of saying "It's a guy thing"?

Hey! How come "nonsensical" is a word, but "sensical" isn't? How is it possible to negate something that doesn't exist?

-Faux "hurm" Pas

American: ...but how can I break my wife of saying "It's a guy thing?"