He said / She said

KindofHere said:

Why don't you guys open up a few books and see what was allowed to be published.

I opened my pdf of Stephen King's Firestarter did a control/find for 'laughed' and never once was it used in place of 'said.'

Alright, that was one book.

So then I go to Stephen King's Different Seasons ... did a control/find for 'laughed' and on page 204 of the PDF I find this sentence from The Body

'Eeee-eeee-eeee, Gordie,' Teddy laughed. 'Go get the provisions, you fuckin' morphadite.' .... That was the only time.

Now his 1982 novel, The Gunslinger two examples.
“Of the town?” she laughed. “There isn’t enough of it to need a map.”

“Like the hawk,” Roland said. “It preys on you.” He laughed — at the startling appropriateness of the image rather than at any lightness in the situation.

Notice he does it both ways ... one '?' and a lower case 's' and one '.' and upper case 'H'.

Nightmares and Dreamscapes
'Oh, honey,' he said, and laughed again. 'Get out my face, okay?'


Nightmares and Dreamscapes
' "A war?" laughed Scarlett."Oh, fiddle-de-dee!"


These examples show you one thing ... It gets done every way in novels.

Cormac McCarthy doesn't even use quotation marks in his writing and his book The Road won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2007.

Just accept that all of you are right when it comes to tags.

Edit: I see Nezhul gave examples .... reinforcement then.

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TBH I wouldn't be bothered by "laughed". It is at least a noise you make with your mouth, so it wouldn't bug me if somebody used it that way, even though it's not in Oxford.

But Oxford is a UK English source. Stephen King and his editors work in US English, so let's look at an American dictionary:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laugh

Unlike Oxford, M-W does recognise "laugh" for use with direct speech. I don't know whether that reflects a genuine difference between US and UK usage, or just that two different groups of editors made different decisions about a borderline case. But either way, King at least has the backing of a US dictionary on that one.

M-W doesn't recognise "nod" or "shrug" with direct speech; any examples of those in (professionally-edited) print?

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Thanks, KindofHere, this settles it for me.

As I expected (and said before) it's more a matter of personal style and preference (of both author and publisher) than any actual rules.

I'm not going to identify my employers; that's more personal information than I'm comfortable sharing on this board. (Also, one of them requires me to treat their editors' manual as confidential and copyright, so I wouldn't be able to share it anyway.)

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Yea, but could you at least say IF there's such a rule about laughing and nodding? Yes or no.
Because there are two posibilities here:
1) this is explicidly regulated in the textbooks of your publishers
2) it is not mentioned at all.

KindofHere said:

I" 'Hmm.' He nodded. 'Now, go on with your story.'


and

"The furnace is cold," he nodded, "and the retorts are covered with dust. On this leg of my long journey I use other instruments."

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First example there isn't being used as a dialogue tag, but the second one definitely is. Interesting. May I ask - how many books did you search through to find that example?

In the meantime, I'll definitely acknowledge that as an example of published use. But I do think it's a highly non-standard example, peculiar enough not to be acknowledged by major dictionaries.

Nezhul said:

As I expected (and said before) it's more a matter of personal style and preference (of both author and publisher) than any actual rules.

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You asked for a reference from Oxford to support my position, and I gave you several references from Oxford. That's about as close as the English language gets to published "rules" for word usage. If I'd known you were going to ignore the references you requested, I wouldn't have wasted time providing them.

If you look hard enough, you can find examples of just about *any* convention of English being broken in print, somewhere. That doesn't make those conventions irrelevant. As KindofHere noted previously, Cormac McCarthy writes dialogue with no quotation marks (indeed, very little punctuation at all) and apparently he's convinced his publishers to accept that.

But if you try the same thing on Literotica your story will be rejected by Laurel, and if she doesn't, it'll be downvoted by readers who expect standard punctuation. Indeed, if you try submitting unpunctuated work to McCarthy's publisher they'll probably reject it or tell you to fix it, because you're not Cormac McCarthy and neither am I.

Yea, but could you at least say IF there's such a rule about laughing and nodding? Yes or no.
Because there are two posibilities here:
1) this is explicidly regulated in the textbooks of your publishers
2) it is not mentioned at all.

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The rule, paraphrased, is: "check with an appropriate dictionary/style guide/etc."

The choice of reference depends on the individual assignment. If I'm editing something that's intended for a US market, I'll use a US dictionary like Merriam-Webster; for a UK audience, more likely Oxford. (Or, depending on the job, I might look for a specialist technical dictionary, etc. etc.)

Which goes back to my previous post, where I noted that those dictionaries don't recognise words like "nodded" or "shrugged" for use with direct speech. Even if Borges (or his translator) got away with it.

You asked for a reference from Oxford to support my position, and I gave you several references from Oxford. That's about as close as the English language gets to published "rules" for word usage. If I'd known you were going to ignore the references you requested, I wouldn't have wasted time providing them.

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Don't be salty about that!

Yes, thanks for Oxford examples. But I do still feel that the style I've been using where you can laugh words or nod as you say them - Is better, more engaging. And now that I have examples of published texts - I think I'll just stick to what's better for me.
You said it yourself, that English has no written rules. You can't be sore because I didn't follow YOUR opinion. You were advocating that you can't "laugh" the words, and it turns out no other than Stephen King uses that. After you got that proof you hesitantly agreed.
You said you can't nod words, but now you have those examples also.

Now what? You feel like you wasted your time? Excuse me, but if I would have listened to your very important opinion from the beginning - I would have cut my options in half, at the very least. You are angry because you lost? Feel like you've wasted your time?
Well don't respond to these threads then. I didn't promise anywhere that I'd follow your advices.
For me it was an important and engaging discussion that really brought a lot of good points to the light. And you feel you wasted your time. You have learned something new in the process, and you feel you've wasted your time. A lot of people other than me would listen to your advices, and you still feel you wasted your time because I said I will go against your opinion.

Well, sucks to be you, then.

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You said it yourself, that English has no written rules.

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Actually, it does. The Chicago Manual of Style is the style book publishers use for American English. The AP Stylebook is what media outlets use.

Having said that, many fiction authors may choose not to follow them all the time.

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KindofHere said:

Those rules are more for academic purposes than entertainment. Guidelines, really.

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No, all major book publishers use the Chicago Manual of Style.

Q: In my writing I strictly follow the rules in The Chicago Manual of Style. For example, in a sentence joined with an “and,” I place a comma after the last word before the “and” when the first part of the sentence is a complete sentence. I have received a rejection with the first page sent back and the editor’s deletion marks are in contradiction to the rule in the Chicago Manual. Should I follow the Chicago Manual in my fiction writing or not?–Carolyn Boyles

A: According to Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript (and editors I’ve spoken to at conferences), most book publishers use The Chicago Manual of Style—or some variation of it—as a formatting guide for their books. So when writing your novel or nonfiction work, it’s best to follow those guidelines.

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http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/questions-and-quandaries/dealing-with-editors/should-i-use-the-chicago-manual-of-style-for-my-book

You are correct, in part, it is also widely used in Academia.

Dream_Operator said:

No, all major book publishers use the Chicago Manual of Style.

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Here we go again, sweeping statements, based on what, exactly? America, probably; Europe, Britain, Australia, possibly not.

electricblue66 said:

Here we go again, sweeping statements, based on what, exactly? America, probably; Europe, Britain, Australia, possibly not.

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I said in my previous post American English.

Actually, it does. The Chicago Manual of Style is the style book publishers use for American English. The AP Stylebook is what media outlets use.

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Perhaps you missed that.

I have no idea what they use in other countries.

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KindofHere said:

But when authors can ignore the rules if they want (famous enough or their writing is just good enough) that makes them more guidelines than actually rules. Rules you have to follow. Guidelines you don't. You should say, 'that is their reference book of style.'

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Authors and artists often ignore the preexisting rules -- Impressionist painters are a great example.

I guess the difference is authors who ignore the rules (guidelines) because they are clueless and ignorant of them. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. If you can't spell or punctuate, readers will judge you.

Nezhul said:

Don't be salty about that!

Yes, thanks for Oxford examples. But I do still feel that the style I've been using where you can laugh words or nod as you say them - Is better, more engaging. And now that I have examples of published texts - I think I'll just stick to what's better for me.

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Yep, you can do that as an author. In my own stories I intentionally break one of the CMoS rules, because it seriously cramps my style.

What I don't do, if I can help it, is break rules accidentally through ignorance of those rules. I do it in the knowledge that I'm going against CMoS and that this may annoy readers who are sticklers for CMoS style.

You said it yourself, that English has no written rules.

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No, that's not what I said, and it would be an absurd thing to say. Please do not put words in my mouth that aren't mine.

My point there (a reply to something you specifically asked) was that there's no reference that PRESCRIBES universal rules of English language. But there are plenty that DESCRIBE those rules, even if they do so imperfectly.

You can't be sore because I didn't follow YOUR opinion. You were advocating that you can't "laugh" the words,

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Again, you're putting words in my mouth. I did not advocate any such thing.

When you specifically asked for Oxford references I provided them, including one for "laughed" because you'd been discussing that with other posters, and I noted what Oxford said about it to save people needing to click the link. In a later post I mentioned that I wasn't bothered by that particular example.

How on earth do you get "advocating" from that?

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Dream_Operator said:

I said in my previous post American English.
Perhaps you missed that.
I have no idea what they use in other countries.

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Yes, I did miss that. Sorry I went off - I reacted to the absolute statement in the post I read, but I see your thought process was a continuation of an earlier one, where you did make the caveat.

Like a turtle on a busy road, I'll pull my head in now

What I don't do, if I can help it, is break rules accidentally through ignorance of those rules.

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Well, I admit that I broke those "rules" accidentally at first. I use quotes because I really can't call a rule anything that has several variations based on the source.
You live and learn.

Now I choose to ignore it because I find it redundant.

"The Rules" are whatever your publisher says they are.

If you don't like whichever rules, find a publisher who agrees with you.