“What’s today’s peeve, Dr. Doyle?” asks the Useful Sockpuppet.
“Proper dialogue punctuation,” I reply. “You will have noted, I presume, that your line just now ended in a question mark, followed by a quotation mark, followed by the verb — in this case, ‘asks’ — in lower case?”
“Um . . . yeah,” says the Useful Sockpuppet.
“And you will have further noticed that your next line of dialogue does not end with a period, but with a comma?”
“I guess so.”
“Sockpuppet, you have eyes — I sewed the buttons on myself. It ends with a comma, followed by a quotation mark, followed by the verb in lower case. Capisce?”
“Yes, ma’am,” says the Useful Sockpuppet.
“Then for the love of literacy, Sockpuppet — next time, get it right.“
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