An HTML Hyperlink Typesetting Question

Richard Fink

It's a little oddball, but so's the Oxford comma.
If you have a link to a company that ends with a period, say Toyota Manufacturing Inc. and you want to link to the company's web site, and the link comes at the end of a sentence, do you include the period from "Inc." in the link and add a second period to end the sentence or do you elide the period in "Inc." to read "Inc" and add a single period, unconnected to the hyperlink?
He's the president of Toyota Manufacturing, Inc..
He's the president of Toyota Manufacturing, Inc.

Dave Crossland

I would prefer 

He's the president of Toyota Manufacturing, Inc.

John Hudson

Although it's an unpopular position, I tend towards the double period. My reasoning is that if the abbreviated word occurred in the middle of a sentence, I would expect it to carry a comma or other clause-level punctuation in addition to the period indicating the abbreviation. So why shouldn't this hold true at the end of the sentence also? Inded, it does, if the sentence ends with a question mark or an exclamation mark. So why not if it ends in a period?

Richard Fink

Dave's option is a third one I hadn't entertained, I don't know why. 
Have the period at the end of the abbreviation "Inc." remain a part of the hyperlink and be done with it.

I'm still thinkin'..... 
There's the problem of not knowing how the link is going to be styled. Will the color differ from the color of the rest of the sentence, as in the traditional blue, or will it be the same color as the rest of sentence?
And then there's the syntactical issue of what the comma is actually a part of: is it part of the hyperlink or part of the parent sentence?   And how would this effect searches using regular expressions and such?

Hmmmm.....

And for those who don't know, this isn't a bullshit question. Ask anybody in academia.
I did a lot of proof reading for my wife as she was getting her doctorate, and they'd spit the damned paper back at you for non-compliant styling "mistakes" like this. 

KP Mawhood

Oxford Manual of Style: If the full point of an abbreviation closes the sentence, there is no second point. 

Contractions: Traditionally, abbreviations end in full points while contractions do not, so that we have Jun. and Jr for Junior, and Rev. and Revd for Reverend… Note that everyday titles like Mr, Mrs, and Dr, being contractions, are written without a point, as is Ltd; editors need not attempt to establish how a particular company styles Ltd in its name. US style uses more points than British style does, even with contractions, thus giving Jr. instead of Jr (no point).

To me, it seems odd to isolate "Inc" from its abbreviation point, in the same way that you wouldn't separate "3 a.m", "e.g" , "i.e". If styling an italic or a bold, best practice includes the point.

joeclark

do you include the period from “Inc.” in the link and add a second period to end the sentence

Never.

do you elide the period in “Inc.” to read “Inc”

Never.

and add a single period, unconnected to the hyperlink?

No.

There’s the problem of not knowing how the link is going to be styled.

Do you not have control over the site’s CSS? Even if you do not, the entire point of separating markup from presentation is that, no, you don’t have control over how it looks.

And for those who don’t know, this isn’t a bullshit question.

If you’re going to say that, then you’re inviting a response, which is: These are questions where the answers were never actually in doubt.

John Hudson

Oxford Manual of Style: If the full point of an abbreviation closes the sentence, there is no second point. 

Question begging: how do you know that the sentence has closed?

It's a reflective time for ACME Inc. CEO Wiley Coyote, a former roadrunner aficionado, now crippled by his many injuries and confined to a wheelchair, looks wistfully at the road beyond his office window.

In that example, you have to read 19 words and three clauses beyond the 'Inc.' before you realise that it was the end of a sentence. Sure, it's going to be possible to parse the sentences to determine where one ends and another begins, but punctuation is supposed to help with that. Yes, doubling the period when a sentence ends with an abbreviation looks weird, but it also does what punctuation is supposed to do.

Jack Jennings

Seems like this could be a case of trying bend punctuation to solve a bad writing habit. Could be said that ending a sentence with a abbreviation is akin to ending it with a dangling preposition.

John Hudson

This is the sort of nonsense up with which one ought not to put. 

Mark Simonson

I was thinking the same thing. Ambiguous situations arise sometimes with writing. Punctuation can help, but sometimes you just need to reword it.

For ACME Inc., it's a reflective time. CEO Wiley Coyote, a former roadrunner aficionado, now crippled by his many injuries and confined to a wheelchair, looks wistfully at the road beyond his office window.

Mark Simonson

(By the way, the dangling preposition “rule” is a myth.)

Richard Fink