Grammar questions

ríomhaire

ríomhaire

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Just confusing thoughts about grammar I have picked up from reading different authors.

  • When should one use " and '? Are they interchangable or do they each have a specific purpose?
  • Should an ! always be added at the end of a sentence in the imperative. Should it be exlusivly used in imperative sentances or should it also be used for enphasis of statements or dialoge.

There where a few others but I can't remember them at this time. Can someone please answer these questions?
 
* When should one use " and '? Are they interchangable or do they each have a specific purpose?
Click to expand...

when something is between "these two" it's a quote, something someone said that you wish to quote, basically. anything in those marks fall under the quote law and you can quote parts of pretty much anything without risk of breaking copyright.

i have never ever heard of '? .

#
# Should an ! always be added at the end of a sentence in the imperative. Should it be exlusivly used in imperative sentances or should it also be used for enphasis of statements or dialoge.
Click to expand...

it's an exclamation mark, use it when you feel like it, i.e when you want to emphasize a certain phrase like this! it completely changes the nature of the sentence! don't overuse it or you'll sound like japanese ad!
 
"this is a quote that someone said or someone wrote"

'this is a name or a term'

You use exclamation marks for exclamations, duh!
 
I've not noticed the ' in any grammar lessons, but I use ' in a sentence that is already in quotes. Example: "We were like 'OMG' and stuff". Quotes in a quote..sort of thing. I don't think that's a correct way of using them though.
 
CrazyHarij said:
when something is between "these two" it's a quote, something someone said that you wish to quote, basically. anything in those marks fall under the quote law and you can quote parts of pretty much anything without risk of breaking copyright.

i have never ever heard of '? .
Click to expand...
Havn't you?
Joking but I've seen a good few authors use it in the context of quotes.


CrazyHarij said:
it's an exclamation mark, use it when you feel like it, i.e when you want to emphasize a certain phrase like this! it completely changes the nature of the sentence! don't overuse it or you'll sound like japanese ad!
Click to expand...
The question really comes from reading Lord of the Rings again. Tolken seems to put an exclamation mark (I know the name :P) at the end of any order. It is rather strange to read
"'Look into the mirror!' she said softly"

lePobz said:
"this is a quote that someone said or someone wrote"

'this is a name or a term'
Click to expand...
Are you positive? Because I have seen authors use ' for dialoge in books. This can be particularly confusing in some situations where characters are using words like ''cos' because there are too many apostraphies!
 
ah yeah, i thought you meant '? as one thing..

' is used as a quote within a quote, as in, some famous guy once said "my opinion of this guy is that when he exclaimed 'my rub-a-dub-dub machine will revolutionise mankind', he greatly overestimated his accomplishment". it's also used in dialogue in books, but there aren't any real rules for writing dialogue in books, just a few common ways like:

"No, I won't", he replied.
or
'No, I won't!', he replied.

or just:
-No, I won't.

also, about the exclamation mark, like you said tolkien uses it liberally, it really varies from author to author.

for instance, in donald duck comics, every single sentence ends with an exclamation mark (unless it's a question), it increases the tempo of the dialogue and furthers the feeling of the comic being a "live" cartoon.

when writing books, especially fiction, there are just a few guidelines but no real rules. if you do something completely original/off the bat though, people are either going to think you're genius or question your knowledge of the english language! :P
 
According to Wikipedia ' and " are both correct as long as the same 2 are used for each end of the quote and the alternate one is used for quotes within quotes. Everyone wins!

Wikipedia is quite vague on exclamation marks but I guess it's just up to the author as Crazy said.
 
CrazyHarij said:
when something is between "these two" it's a quotation, something someone said that you wish to quote, basically. anything in those marks fall under the quote law and you can quote parts of pretty much anything without risk of breaking copyright.
Click to expand...
Fixed :p
 
"din mamma"-skämt fungerar inte i skriven form, ty innehållets vulgära natur kan te sig stötande för personer med dålig humor.
 
Then John said, "So the man said, 'So the girl screamed, "HELP THE PERSON THAT JUST DIED!"'"
So you have it!
 
HEY I SPEAK DIFFERENT LANGUAGES ON ENGLISH FORUMS LAWL

But, from what I remember, the only place to use 's is where there's a quotation inside a quotation. Like:

"So she said, 'You suck,' and I slapped her," said Bill.
 
I can't even speak any foreign languages. I just play 'Use the Online Translator' so that I can be as cool as the other two. :dozey:
 
fn.91.jpg
 
Single or double quotation marks are used to denote either speech or a quotation. Neither style is an absolute rule though double quotes are preferred in the USA, but a publisher’s or even an author’s style may take precedence. The important rule is that the style of opening and closing quotes must be matched.

‘Good morning, Dave,’ greeted HAL.
“Good morning, Dave,” greeted HAL.

For speech within speech, the other is used as inner quotation marks.

‘HAL said, “Good morning, Dave,” ’ recalled Frank.
“HAL said, ‘Good morning, Dave,’ ” recalled Frank.

Omitting quotes is generally not recommended.

Sometimes, quotations are nested in more levels than inner and outer quotation. Nesting levels up to five can be found in the Bible. In these cases, questions arise about the form (and names) of the quotation marks to be used. The most common way is to simply alternate between the two forms.

“…‘…“…‘ … … ’…”…’…”

If such a passage is further quoted in another publication, then all of their forms have to be shifted over by one level.

In most cases, quotations that span multiple paragraphs should be block-quoted, and thus do not require quotation marks. Quotation marks are used for multiple-paragraph quotations in some cases, especially in narratives. The convention in English is to give the first and each subsequent paragraph opening quotes, using closing quotes only for the final paragraph of the quotation. The Spanish convention, though similar, uses closing quotes at the beginning of all subsequent paragraphs beyond the first.

When quoted text is interrupted, such as with the phrase he said, a closing quotation mark is used before the interruption, and an opening quotation mark after. Commas are also often used before and after the interruption, more often for quotations of speech than for quotations of text.

“HAL,” noted Frank, “said that everything was going extremely well.”

It is generally considered incorrect to use quotation marks for paraphrased speech:

Wrong: HAL said that “Everything was going extremely well.”
Right: HAL said that everything was going extremely well.
Right: HAL said, “All systems are functional.”

However, another convention when quoting text in the body of a paragraph or sentence, especially in philosophical essays, is to recognise double quotation marks as marking an exact quote, and single quotation marks as marking a paraphrased quote or a quote where pronouns or plurality have been changed in order to fit the sentence containing the quote.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark
 
Stylistically:

The American standard is to use the quotation mark " for direct quotes, as well as "mild" emphasis. For emphasis, quotation marks are "rarely" used when less ambiguous, more visually appealing options such as italics and bold are available. The American standard is also to use the apostrophe ' for direct quotes within direct quotes, as "The dog growled 'Woof!' at me," and the quotation mark " for direct quotes within direct quotes within direct quotes, et cetera.

In many parts of the world and certain persuasions of style within America, the roles of the apostrophe and quotation mark are fully reversed.

In every part of the world, though, the apostrophe ' is the only character that replaces letters in a contraction, and the only character (in association with s) that makes nouns possessive. It is also never, ever, EVER used to indicate plurality, in ANY part of the world.

Use of the exclamation mark ! is largely stylistic, but the standard is generally that it be avoided except in dialogue and in statements meant to show or elicit some strong emotion, especially surprise ("An average of forty people pass away every minute. That's a lot of human life!"). I would discourage the use of exclamation marks in any formal or semiformal writing, solely because most statements can be better written without them.
 
You already read it in Wiki, but " " are used for direct quotes, and ' ' are used for quotes within sentences. That's how I've always used them. For example if I was writing a post here and wanted to quote someone right in my post, I'd use " ".

If I wanted to quote someone in like a bit of dialogue, then it'd be " ' ' "; e.g., "I asked the forums and they said, 'this is the proper way to use quotations'."
 
WTF are these little lines? If you're quoting somebody, use these- [ QUOTE][ /QUOTE]
 
I've seen a couple authors use it in reverse. So a sentence would go -

'And then he was all like, "Dude, what does mine say?", and I was like "Sweet, what about mine?"'

I find that way to be easier to read... atleast in books, it looks retarded how I just did it there for some reason.
 
I've seen it done that way too, but more often in reverse, so while it works either way it seems more natural (to me) for double quotes to be on the outside and single quotes on the inside. Doesn't matter though. As long as you alternate, that's what counts.
 
"" - speech marks
' - quotation marks

Bunch of nubs :P
 
basically what you wrote first was something along the english equalivent of "you(singular) boners and your(singular) crazies upwards made the languages."

the second was
"It es for-incorrect (???), is it nope?"
 
First one was supposed to be "You crazy people and your made up languages."

Second one was "It didn't make sense, did it?"
 
AntiAnto said:
"You just have to use the 'single quotation marks 'again' as I'm doing' right now" I said.
Click to expand...
Wrong. You change them each time.
She said "Brian said 'Mary said "Aoife said 'Mam said "Shit"'"'"
 
Must be annoying on a 56k with all thoose extra punctuation marks to download and whatnot.
 
ríomhaire said:
Wrong. You change them each time.
She said "Brian said 'Mary said "Aoife said 'Mam said "Shit"'"'"
Click to expand...

I'll be damned.

« In french, you can use the english "quotation marks if you want to 'quote something said' in a quote". Hail punctuation »
 
ríomhaire said:
The question really comes from reading Lord of the Rings again. Tolken seems to put an exclamation mark (I know the name :P) at the end of any order. It is rather strange to read
"'Look into the mirror!' she said softly"
Click to expand...

I've never done too well in English, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

As to exclamation points, perhaps the definition of exclaim will help: "to cry out or speak suddenly and vehemently, as in surprise, strong emotion, or protest."
 
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