Collins Cobuild English Grammar (137 page)

7.20
    Another way of describing the way in which something is said is to use a verb that is usually used to describe the sound made by a particular kind of animal.

Excuse me! Susannah
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
.
It was a joke, he
grinned
.

BE CREATIVE

7.21
    You use verbs like
bark
and
smile
in direct speech when you want to create a particular effect, especially in writing.

position of reporting verb

7.22
    There are several positions in which you can put the reporting verb 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, he said.
He stepped back and said, Now look at that. You see, he said, my father was an inventor.

7.23
    If you put the reporting verb in the middle of a quote, it must go in one of the following positions:

after a
noun phrase

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

after a
vocative
such as
darling
or
Dad

‘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

‘I know you don’t remember your father,’ said James, ‘but he was a kind and generous man.’

7.24
    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 subject very well.

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

changing the order of the subject and the reporting verb

7.25
    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, except in some literary contexts.

punctuation of quotes

7.26
    The following examples show how you punctuate quotes in British English. You can use either single quotation marks (
‘ ’
) or double quotation marks (
“ ”
). The ones used to begin a quote are called
opening
quotation marks, and the ones used to end a quote are called
closing
quotation marks.

‘Let’s go,’ I whispered.
“We have to go home,” she told him.
Mona’s mother answered: ‘Oh yes, she’s in.’
He nodded and said, ‘Yes, he’s my son.’
‘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”?

Note that in the last example shown above, there is a quote within a quote. If you are using single quotation marks for the main quote, the quoted words within the main quote are enclosed in double quotation marks. If you are using double quotation marks for the main quote, the quoted words within the main quote are enclosed in single quotation marks.

In American English, you always use double quotation marks (
“ ”
), except where you have a quote within a quote. In such cases, the quoted words within the main quote are enclosed in single quotation marks (
‘ ’
). This is shown in the second example below.

“What are you doing?” Sarah asked.
“What do they mean,” she demanded, “by a ‘population problem’?”

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

Reporting in your own words: reported speech

7.27
    When you report what people have said using your own words rather than the words they actually used, you use
reported speech
.

The woman said she had seen nothing.
I replied that I had not read it yet.

You usually use a reported speech structure when you report what someone thinks.

He thought she was worried.

Reported speech is sometimes called
indirect speech
. Reported speech consists of two parts. One part is the
reporting clause
, which contains the reporting verb.

I told him
that nothing was going to happen to me.
I have agreed
that he should do it.
I wanted
to be alone.

The other part is the
reported clause
.

He answered
that he thought the story was extremely interesting
.
He felt
that he had to do something
.
He wondered
where they could have come from
.

You usually put the reporting clause first, in order to make it clear that you are reporting rather than speaking directly yourself.

Henry said
that he wanted to go home.

The exact words that Henry used are unlikely to have been
I want to go home
, although they might have been. It is more likely that he said something like
I think I should be going now
. You are more likely to report what he meant rather than what he actually said.

There are many reasons why you do not quote a person’s exact words. Often you cannot remember exactly what was said. At other times, the exact words are not important or not appropriate in the situation in which you are reporting.

types of reported clause

7.28
    There are several types of
reported clause
. The type you use depends on whether you are reporting a statement, a question, an order, or a suggestion.

Most reported clauses either are
that
-clauses or begin with a
to
-infinitive. When a question is being reported, the reported clause begins with
if
,
whether
, or a
wh
-word. The use of
that
-clauses as reported clauses is discussed in paragraphs
7.29
to
7.31
.
Reported questions
are discussed in paragraphs
7.32
to
7.38
. The use of
to
-infinitive clauses in reported speech is discussed in paragraphs
7.39
to
7.48
.