A point of punctuation

grumpyg

Experienced
Joined
Sep 13, 2007
Posts
67
Apologies if this has already been answered but search won't work on my tablet:
In conversation, if a question mark, exclamation mark etc is used, which these is correct?:
"Are you going to the party?" She asked, "It's on Friday night." or "Are you going to the party?" she asked, "It's on Friday night." ... or does the question mark go after 'night'?
 
It's two separate sentences, so it should be:

"Are you going to the party?" she asked. "It's on Friday night."
 
lovecraft gave the most useful reply. , sr You are an arrogant bastard.

sr, the question was asked and lc gave good advice.
 
Bullshit. The question was how to punctuate perfectly fine dialogue, not how to rewrite it both not to get the punctuation question answered and to substitute someone else's writing for the author's.

You're just being you usual bottom feeder self, Elfin.
 
But the question wasn't how to rewrite it. It was how to punctuate what the author had chosen to write. And, as I posted, a lot of you here can't resist answering the question not asked and intruding your style on others.
 
Thanks guys. As well as the punctuation I should have also said ...
Capital S She asked, or lowercase she asked. Usually after a question mark it's capital S, but speech seems to have its own rules :(
 
No, it isn't a capital S in this construction. The "she asked" slug is part of the quoted sentence. You wouldn't use the "she said/asked" slug if you were going to terminate inside the quote.
 
Lol. Thanks guys. I never did do well in English at school. Spelling I can do, composition I can do, even write a whole story. Grammar always let me down! Have an e-drink on me!
 
So, who here has read Dale Carnegie?

Especially his book - "How to win friends and influence people"

:rolleyes:
 
So, who here has read Dale Carnegie?

Especially his book - "How to win friends and influence people"

:rolleyes:

"Me, me!" she exclaimed, raising her hand high and jumping up and down enthusiastically. "Do I win a prize?"

;)
 
Interesting thread. Thanks for the laugh, elfin. :)

Good point, LC. And yes, Pilot, you were right. You just didn't go far enough. :eek: :)
 
Sooo many with their noses out of joint for not being left to freely play their "let's pretend I'm an expert" Internet game. :D
 
lovecraft gave the most useful reply. , sr You are an arrogant bastard.

sr, the question was asked and lc gave good advice.

No, actually, LC offered a suggestion that wasn't in line with what the OP asked. Useful, yes, but not actually an answer to the question. sr71 answered the question.

Thanks guys. As well as the punctuation I should have also said ...
Capital S She asked, or lowercase she asked. Usually after a question mark it's capital S, but speech seems to have its own rules :(

No, as is pointed out below, a dialogue tag (she said, he said, she groaned, he yelled, etc.) never starts with a capital letter unless it's a person's name.

No, it isn't a capital S in this construction. The "she asked" slug is part of the quoted sentence. You wouldn't use the "she said/asked" slug if you were going to terminate inside the quote.

Normally, after a question mark or exclamation point, the following sentence would begin with a capital letter. But when they are used in dialogue, exclamation points and question marks follow different rules. The dialogue tag that follows (if there is one) is considered part of the sentence that otherwise would normally have ended with the punctuation.

Just to make it more confusing, it's been decided that a period within quotation marks still acts as a period. In effect, it cancels out a direct dialogue tag. For example:

"I think I'll just leave Jessica to her fate." He turned away and busied himself with the contents of the leather bag.

In the above sentence, there is no dialogue tag indicating what "he" said, but it's pretty obvious who the speaker was. The same line could be written as:

"I think I'll just leave Jessica to her fate," he said, then turned away and busied himself with the contents of the leather bag.

Both examples mean exactly the same thing; they're just worded differently.

So, if you end a piece of dialogue with a comma, question mark, or exclamation point, any dialogue tag that follows is considered part of that same sentence. Don't capitalize "he" or "she," but do, of course, capitalize a person's name as always.

And if you end dialogue with a comma, it demands a dialogue tag. You can't just write:

"I think I'll just leave Jessica to her fate,"

If any of this came across as patronizing, it wasn't intentional. Just trying to clear up one of many convoluted grammar rules in the jumbled morass of confusion that is the English language. ;)
 
Sorry, no. :(

Well, I should. I've read Dale Carnegie, I've remained diplomatically pleasant -- on this thread, anyway -- and I gave my answer in a way that demonstrated proper punctuation. Bonus points: my husband says it's quite a show when I jump up and down like that. So I think that's prize worthy :D
 
If any of this came across as patronizing, it wasn't intentional. Just trying to clear up one of many convoluted grammar rules in the jumbled morass of confusion that is the English language.

Not at all. Many thanks everyone for your help
 
"If any of this came across as patronizing, it wasn't intentional. Just trying to clear up one of many convoluted grammar rules in the jumbled morass of confusion that is the English language."

Not at all. Many thanks everyone for your help

Hint:
Suggest you put the statement in quote marks OR quote the whole thing and delete what you don't need.
 
If any of this came across as patronizing, it wasn't intentional. Just trying to clear up one of many convoluted grammar rules in the jumbled morass of confusion that is the English language. ;)

That statement just caused a nearly half-century flashback to high school Spanish I class. I can still hear a very frustrated Miss Bissler berating us for making learning a foreign language much more difficult than it really is, and ending her mini-lecture with:

"For God's sake, you managed to learn the English language and...between the rules, the exceptions to the rules, and the exceptions to the exceptions...it is the most screwed up one on the planet. Spanish should be the proverbial piece of cake for you all!"
 
Back
Top