Forum:Spelling, grammar and punctuation

I've noticed a wealth of spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors or at least difference of opinion on style on material not copied from elsewhere.

The biggie is probably "it's" as a possessive. I've always been taught (and taught) that it's "its".

There's always the Oxford Comma controversy. I don't like them personally unless absolutely necessary to understand the flow of a sentence with a long and messy list, but I've seen both usages on here.

Then there's two spaces after a period vs. one. I grew up on a manual typewriter and was taught two, understand one is all the rage, but just read a memo with that usage and now I've got a headache.

Is a simple fix a "minor edit", does it need to be signed and if so where?

Do we have a style guide?

TrogL (talk) 18:17, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Here is the Manual of Style. In general, spelling/grammar is a minor edit. I honestly have no idea about the period spacing. Tytalk 18:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, you only use one space after a period now, in legal documents, academic documents, etc. I has to do with the readability of font spacing.  Used to be that to "justify" on a manual typewriter, you used spaces.  so  your  typing might look  a bit  like  this.  But now we have computers, so any justification is done with small unnoticeable shifts.  So you don't need two spaces after a "."   it's as a possessive is not style, it's just plane wrong.  (plain?)  doesn't mean we don't do it from time to time, but that always should be corrected if you do find it.  commas - i suck at them, but the people who are good writers, just follow their own view/flow for that one.  and all main space edits are "signed" by the system.  but if it's just any of these, use the "minor edit" button.  [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]Godot   Tue pour toujours, et tu veux vivre aussi. 18:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * HTML collapses any more than one space down to one. (unless you use        this) Scream!! (talk) 18:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * O'h & you dont' sign edit's in article's & you do'nt amend others comment's. Scream!! (talk) 18:47, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Also: re. apostrophes Scream!! (talk) 18:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Also also: we accept USian & UKian spelling without discrimination unless the subject of an article is definitely one or t'other.Scream!! (talk) 19:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I prefer two spaces after a full stop (period) to indicate the end of a sentence & differentiate it from where you're using a stop to indicate an abbreviation like "etc." which can appear in the middle of a sentence. But, alas, MediaWiki only renders one space even when write two.  19:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * As I said above: it's HTML that collapses the spaces, not MediaWiki. Scream!! (talk) 19:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * We're always going to have a variety of spelling variants just because of our diverse user-base but some of us do care about punctuation and grammar so please dive in and fix it wherever you see it in a mainspace article. Talk pages are obviously a different matter as people are often writing hastily or on mobile devices. Personally, I prefer double spaces at the ends of sentences, particularly where full justification compresses rather than expan spacing but I acknowledge that modern style is for a single space, but as has been pointed out, that is not something under our control.  07:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)