“Already did it,” you reply, which is almost true. Bunce and How to Find What You’re Not Looking For, by Veera Hiranandani-although incidentally the last was a fun find, a novel written in the second person: The same pattern appeared in every book I picked up: Death at La Fenice, by Donna Leon Premeditated Myrtle, by Elizabeth C. Depends who you ask, barked the cashier. “We can’t give change from a dollar,” Henry explained. It doesn’t matter whether the tag uses noun-verb (“Mary said”) or verb-noun (“said Mary”) order. This tradition is widely followed, even when quotation marks aren’t used. When a speaker tag follows a speech, a comma (or other punctuation) marks the end of the speech. But now that you are home, continued the banker, it’s probably best for everyone involved if we see this process through. That was right kind of you, said Emmett. But again I couldn’t find a single instance of words like “said” leading into a speech.* Instead, a new paragraph and a dash signal the beginning of a character’s speech. Next, I looked at Amor Towles’s The Lincoln Highway. “Been meaning to have them looked at,” Hawkin mused. “Hope to God you had your brakes serviced recently,” she said, her voice tight. The book has plenty of dialogue, but the speaker tags always come after the speech, never before: To begin, I grabbed the nearest fiction at hand, Laurie R. Something funny happened when I searched through published novels for examples of commas after words like “said” in front of dialogue: I couldn’t find any. She said that I should, given the circumstances, “jump in the lake.” Creative License She said that I should “jump in the lake.” E.g., the comma after “circumstances” in the second sentence below belongs to a pair of parenthetical commas around “given the circumstances.” It would be there whether what followed was quoted speech or not. If that sounds unhelpful, read on to see what real-life published writers are doing these days.Ī comma might be needed before a quotation for reasons that have nothing to do with introducing dialogue. Besides, I wrote the sentences, I like them that way, and I don’t know of any rule that says they’re wrong. The middle ones don’t need a comma, because “muttering” and “say” are not directly tagging a speaker. Taking Chicago’s advice, I would answer the question at the top of this post by styling all four sentences as they are shown. She said she would “prefer not to comment.” Back to the Q One of the protesters scrawled “Long live opera!” in huge red letters. When a quotation introduced midsentence forms a syntactical part of the surrounding sentence, no comma or other mark of punctuation is needed to introduce it.ĭonovan made a slight bow and said he was “very glad.” CMOS 13.15 explains when a comma is not needed before an opening quotation mark: The key words in that advice are When it is simply a matter of identifying a speaker. Sandip writes, “What they did was courageous, if silly.” Garrett replied, “I hope you are not referring to me.” Such usage is more traditional than logical. When it is simply a matter of identifying a speaker, a comma is used after said, replied, asked, and similar verbs to introduce a quotation. It’s a writing tradition to put a comma after a word like “said” when it introduces dialogue or a quotation. Mimicking Hector’s level of sass to perfection, Bel said, “Try to keep up.” The Chicago Way It would be more accurate to say “I made it up” than “I exaggerated.” Kat set the painting on the windowsill, muttering “One more to go.” Would you add a comma before the quotation marks in the following sentences?Įllie finally admitted, “They look different from before.”
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