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6. Punctuating abbreviations - Terminal points Empty 6. Punctuating abbreviations - Terminal points

Tue Nov 15, 2022 12:22 pm
Abbreviation

Keep the period for the abbreviation; do not add an additional period.
Please meet us at 10:00 a.m.

Keep the period for the abbreviation; end the sentence with a question mark.
Are we supposed to meet at 10:00 a.m.?

Keep the period for the abbreviation; end the sentence with an exclamation point.
She told us to be there at 5:00 a.m.!

Title ending with a question mark

The question mark ends the sentence; no additional period.
His first appearance on Broadway was in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The question mark in the name or title ends the sentence; no additional question mark.

Who plays the lead in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Place the exclamation point immediately after the question mark.
I can’t stand Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?!

www.thepunctuationguide.com/terminal-points.html

From CMOS:

Punctuation
Q. Is it correct to have the exclamation point or question mark immediately after the period in each of the following sentences? He said he’d be there at 5:30 a.m.! Is your name John Smith Jr.? I know that since at least 1993 CMOS has encouraged writers to avoid unnecessary commas (Is your name John Smith, Jr.? She works for Time, Inc.). However, there has not been a similar assault on periods. I am not complaining, but I wonder about the above sentences involving a period and punctuation immediately afterward.

A. It’s useful to distinguish punctuation that’s part of a word from punctuation that ends a sentence. A period that is part of a word (such as an abbreviation) cannot be replaced by any other punctuation besides a sentence-ending period. So yes, retain the question mark and exclamation mark, as you would a colon, semicolon, or comma.

www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Punctuation/faq0082.html
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