I have to be pedantic but the correct phrase, in the Software Industry, is "Golden Master" not "Gold Master". The latter is the term used in the music recording industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_master
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_master
I've been working for Apple, testing prerelease OSes for a long time, and it's always been Golden Master. It's driving me crazy seeing idiots use the wrong term.
I
hate to be pedantic, but
periods belong inside quotation marks.
I'd hardly label anyone an idiot in this case.
Periods CAN go outside quotation marks; sometimes, often in England, it is done according to sense. Say you're quoting from the middle of a sentence, and ending your own sentence with the quote, you might put the period outside; but if the thing you're quoting ends in a period, you would put the period on the inside. Thus:
Shakespeare said, "If music be the food of love".
Shakespeare said, "The play's the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."
(I don't know why one would ever say the first one, but it's an example.)
I think this way makes more sense in many cases, but of course you would be safer always putting punctuation inside quotation marks, since that is the rule more people are familiar with -- and as Professor Strunk says, it is always (I say usually) better to use the standard rules than the nonstandard.
One rule I think is more important to follow is to distinguish ignorance and stupidity. If someone doesn't know a trivial technicality such as the one in question, is he less intelligent for it? Less learned, even? --For, he might well be very knowledgeable in other fields. When we know a fact, it always seems obvious to us: how could it seem anything else? You either know it, or you don't -- you either understand it perfectly, or not at all. What facts are worth more than other facts?
