When I’m stymied by a particular English-usage question and I can’t find an answer in my usual sources, I’ll consult the Chicago Style Q&A, an online resource of The Chicago Manual of Style. I was browsing the Q&A the other day—I’m waiting breathlessly for them to post an answer to a question I submitted—when I saw the following:
Q. Contracts often employ defined terms in quotes and parentheses, e.g., ABC Corp. (the “Seller”) shall sell ten widgets to XYZ Corp. (the “Buyer”). When drafting such a contract, I always put a period after the close parenthesis if it is the end of the sentence, such as in the above example. But it’s like listening to nails on a chalkboard to me to have a period essentially (ignoring the parenthetical) follow the period employed in an abbreviation. What do you recommend?
A. Yoga?
I concur that you’d have to be rather tightly wound to have a problem with the cited phenomenon. I’d be able to suggest to whoever submitted this question a slew of usages guaranteed, with greater justification, to have them chewing the carpet.
