Reporting someone's actual words: quote structures

Reporting someone's actual words: quote structures

14 When you want to say that a person used particular words, you use a quote structure. You can do this even if you do not know, or do not remember, the exact words that were spoken. When you use a quote structure, you report what someone said as if you were using their own words.

Quote structures are sometimes called direct speech. A quote structure consists of two clauses. One clause is the reporting clause, which contains the reporting verb.

'I knew I'd seen you,' I said.

'Only one,' replied the Englishman.

The other part is the quote, which represents what someone says or has said.

'Let's go and have a look at the swimming-pool,' she suggested.

'Leave me alone,' I snarled.

You can quote anything that someone saysstatements, questions, orders, suggestions, and exclamations. In writing, you use inverted commas (' ') or (' ') at the beginning and end of a quote.

'Thank you,' I said.

After a long silence he asked: 'What is you name?'

Note that, in written stories, quotes can be used without reporting clauses if the speakers have been established, and if you do not wish to indicate what kind of utterances the quotes are.

'When do you leave?''I should be gone now.''Well, good-bye, Hamo.'

15 Thinking is sometimes represented as speaking to oneself. You can therefore use some verbs which refer to thinking as reporting verbs in quote structures.

I must go and see Lynn, Marsha thought.

When you are using a quote structure to say what someone thought, you usually omit the inverted commas at the beginning and end of the quote.

How much should he tell her? Not much, he decided.

Perhaps that's no accident, he reasoned.

Was Cynthia, he wondered, beginning to yield at last?

16 Here is a list of reporting verbs which are often used with quote structures:

A few of these verbs can or must be used with an object referring to the hearer. See paragraphs 71 to 72.

17 If you want to indicate the way in which something was said, you can use a reporting verb such as 'shout', 'wail', or 'scream'. Verbs like these usually occur only in written stories.

'Jump!' shouted the oldest women.

'Oh, poor little thing,' she wailed.

'Get out of there,' I screamed.

Here is a list of verbs indicating the way in which something is said:

18 Another way of indicating the manner of speaking is to use a verb which is usually used to describe the sound made by a particular kind of animal.

'Sorry to be late,' he barked.

You can use a verb such as 'smile', 'grin', or 'frown' to indicate the expression on someone's face while they are speaking.

'I'm awfully sorry.''Not at all,' I smiled.

'Hardly worth turning up for,' he grinned.

You use verbs like 'bark' and 'smile' in quote structures when you want to create a particular effect, especially in writing. This is a productive feature of English. For more information about productive features see the Introduction.

19 There are several positions in which you can put the reporting clause in relation to a quote. The usual position is after the quote, but it can also go in front of the quote or in the middle of the quote.

'You have to keep trying, Mabel,' he said.

He stepped back and said, 'Now look at that.'

'You see,' he said, 'my father was a clergyman.'

20 If you put the reporting clause in the middle of a quote, it must go in one of the following positions:

after a noun group

'That man,' I said, 'never opened a window in his life.'

after a vocative

'Darling,' Max said to her, 'don't say it's not possible.'

after a sentence adverb

'Maybe,' he said hesitantly, 'maybe there is a beast.'

after a clause, if the quote contains more than one clause.

'I rang the bell,' Rudolph said, 'and your friend let me in.'

21 You can use most reporting verbs in front of a quote.

She replied, 'My first thought was to protect him.'

One student commented: 'He seems to know his material very well.'

However, the reporting verbs 'agree', 'command', 'promise', and 'wonder' are hardly ever used in front of a quote.

inversion of subject and reporting verb 22 When a reporting verb comes after a quote, the subject is often put after the verb.

'Perhaps he isn't a bad sort of chap after all,' remarked Dave.

'I see,' said John.

'I am aware of that,' replied the Englishman.

Note that this is not done when the subject is a pronoun.

punctuation of quotes 23 The following examples show how you punctuate quotes. You can use either single inverted commas (' ') or double inverted commas (' '). The ones used to begin a quote are called opening inverted commas, and the ones used to end a quote are called closing inverted commas.

'Let's go,' I whispered.

'We have to go home,' she told him.

Mona's mother answered: 'Oh yes, she's in.'

He smiled and asked, 'Are you her grandson?'

'Margaret,' I said to her, 'I'm so glad you came.'

'What are you doing?' Sarah asked.

'Of course it's awful!' shouted Clarissa.

'What do they mean,' she demanded, 'by a 'population problem'?'

If you are quoting more than one paragraph, you put opening inverted commas at the beginning of each paragraph, but you put closing inverted commas only at the end of the last paragraph.