David: Seriously?
I mean, if you're going to try to imitate me, then you'll have to explain why you chose to put that question mark inside the quotation marks. See, you quote this:
what did you whine about today?
which should be enclosed in quotation marks when quoted
in a statement. The final question mark should be inside the quotation marks as the quote itself is a question. Thus:
... "what did you whine about today?"
is the proper form for the quotation part of your question.
However, I believe that when a quotation is part of a question, the question mark at the end of the sentence should be outside the quotation marks:
Did John say "I like where we're going"?
If the question mark were inside the quotes, that would imply that John is asking a question. In reality we're asking a question about his statement, so the question mark follows the quotation mark.
A question that quotes a question begs for two question marks:
Shouldn't it be "what did you whine about today?"?
In other words, to put it succinctly, don't get me started.
By the way, the presence of autocorrect and of the many of us who have spoken all of our lives but have rarely written outside of school classes should, by themselves, excuse this. Unless you simply must bring it up.
I bring up things that have to do with communication; things left out, things that can be misinterpreted, things irrelevant to the discussion. I think we all got this. (I often err in not knowing what the hell the writer is abbreviating when I see two or three letters I've never seen before.)
