Q. A colleague has sent me your about-face from the 15th edition regarding punctuation following italicized words, and I am speechless. I’m afraid I’ll have to look for a new authority on style, because this decision is so vile, and makes text look so absolutely horrible that I refuse to follow the change. What’s next? Putting commas and periods outside quotation marks? You may as well go that route as well; it looks better than having a roman question mark or exclamation point after an italicized word. What’s wrong with you? Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone? Absolutely irrational, horrible decision. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
A. We will give that some thought.