Re:Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation ov...
by kazinator on Monday September 20, 2021 @08:32PM
(#28600744)
I think, if we want to leave out the question mark, we have to switch to an indirect quote (reported speech):
> He asked me what time it is, and ....
Now we have an embedded wh-clause, not an embedded quote. Embedded wh-clauses are not questions.
(One piece of evidence: subject and auxiliary are not inverted, appearing as it is rather than is it.)
I meant my point mostly tongue in cheek. Redundancy is not necessarily bad.
I do have trouble reading your sentence, though. The change of voice in a declarative sentence to interrogative without a stop, is kind of jarring. In that one, I'd leave off the quote and question mark, I think.
That all said, I think I mainly agree that it is all guidelines and mostly driven by reasons we no longer remember or care about. The rule I remember hearing was that the smaller character of the period was preferred inside the larger character, as the period was prone to break if done in the other way.