glitch wit punctuation in chicago 17th ed.

i think that i discovered an error in the generation of chicago 17th ed. bibliography.
if an article title ends with a question mark or a full stop, the bibliographical description misses the full stop which must separate the title of the article from the title of the journal.
the title is: “Information literacy”: un concetto solo statunitense?
and the erroneous generated bibliography results:
Basili, Carla. «“Information literacy”: un concetto solo statunitense?» AIDA Informazioni 19, n. 2 (2001): 4.
while it should be:
Basili, Carla. «“Information literacy”: un concetto solo statunitense?». AIDA Informazioni 19, n. 2 (2001): 4.

the correct punctuation in the bibliography appears only if the question mark in the title is deleted. as it seems some clash happens between the two elements of punctuation. is it possible to correct this glitch?
best
maurizio
  • At least in the US version of Chicago Manual (which is the only official one) that's correct behavior. You don't duplicate punctuation.
  • thank you adamsmith!
    i didn't know this inner detail, whose reason i understand in theory.
    in practice it is strange because the punctuation marks are separated by the chevron which delimits the title, so the two marks are not really contiguous: no one would like to read
    ...statunitense?. AIDA...
    but when the text is
    ...statunitense?». AIDA...
    the two marks are not really contiguous and are fully understandable in their scope.
    anyway, long life the Chicago Manual!
    best
    maurizio
  • The reason is that in American English, periods and commas are always placed into quotation marks, so you'd get ?.
  • ehm, excuse me adamsmith, but the . is not part of the title, while the ? is.
    so why should or could they end being on the same side of the chevron?

    and with titles not ending with punctuation, the Chicago Style always produces bibliograpy items with a . on the right side of the chevron, see one for all:
    Chu, Clara M. «Literacy Practices of Linguistic Minorities: Sociolinguistic Issues and Implications for Literacy Services». The Library Quarterly 69, n. 3 (1999): 339–59. https://doi.org/10.1086/603093.

  • ehm, excuse me adamsmith, but the . is not part of the title, while the ? is.
    so why should or could they end being on the same side of the chevron?
    Because that's how punctuation in American English works and how the Chicago Manual specifies this.

    The fact that this may be a bit awkward in non-US English version is just a byproduct of localization.
  • As adamsmith says, this is correct American English usage. (As an American, I agree that this behavior is dumb, but it is the universal convention.)

    If you want to move the punctuation, change the Document Preferences to a language that places the punctuation outside the quote marks, such as UK English or French.
  • But they're already doing that -- the above is clearly French or Italian locale. I guess the question is if the punctuation suppression should work differently for punctuation-in-quote being true/false. I don't have a strong opinion on this.
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