I Want To See The Zoo, She Said, I Want To See The Zoo.

[rionaleonhart]

WHILST I'M BEING INSECURE ABOUT MY WRITING: for as long as I can remember, I have used "double quotation marks" for speech in fiction and 'single quotation marks' for all other purposes. No style guide will recommend this: in British publishing convention, single quotes are used for all purposes, including speech, with speech within speech the only context in which double quotes are used; in American publishing convention, the situation is reversed. Does this inconsistency bother you? (Alternative question: do you have similar stylistic quirks?) I just think there's something quite nice about drawing a visual distinction between speaking and 'setting a phrase aside'. If there are two different types of quotation mark, why not put them to use?


Regarding Supernatural: I rewatched 'Fresh Blood' a little while ago, and it reminded me of how awesome Bela can be. I love that she actually seems surprised and a little upset that Dean is so angry with her for telling a murderous madman where to find them. HONESTLY, DEAN, YOU'RE SO OVERSENSITIVE. And then she helps them track him down, because, hey, she didn't know Dean was going to be so unreasonable about the whole thing. I love her.

HERE IS SOMETHING I WOULD LOVE TO SEE: a rewritten Twilight, with Bela in the role of Bella. Edward may be ridiculously strong and fast, but if he can't hear Bela's thoughts he's doomed. She will seduce him, use him shamelessly and then run off with his sister to form an amazing con artist duo. It would be pretty great. And at least Bela's unsympathetic aspects are intentional, unlike those of Bella 'Stupid Unattractive Humans With Their Stupid Being Nice To Me' Swan.

(Jo is welcome to join Bela and Alice in their con-artistry.)

(Also, Ruby can flit between the three of them, although I have not yet decided whether she would assist with the cons or whether she would ruin them for her own amusement by possessing the team members at inopportune moments.)

Comments

[sashwizzled.livejournal.com]

I do exactly what you do - with the double and single quotes. I think it's a mixture between the American stuff I read on the internet and the British books I read coming together in a vaguely logical way. XD

[bubbles-san.livejournal.com]

Bella 'Stupid Unattractive Humans With Their Stupid Being Nice To Me' Swan That's her Indian name, yes.

I want to rewrite Twilight with Jeff and Neville as Edward and Bella, but I don't think I have the attention span for it.

As to writing quirks, I almost always stick commas and periods outside of single quotes ('like so'.) and I have no idea why. It's not grammatically correct, and it doesn't even look right, but I always do it. Maybe when I get published I'll make my editor leave it in, so that it's something that's mine and only mine alone. Another thing I do is use 'o' for '0'. (See? I did it there, too, without even meaning to.) That's intentional, because I did it as a typo once (they're right next to each other on the keyboard) and I thought it looked neat so I kept it.

And because I have to ask, where's your subject line from this time?

[bubbles-san.livejournal.com]

And because I got distracted and forgot:

"speech"
'quotes within quotes, titles'
titles. I actually was taught a very specific way to write different titles in school, none of which involved italics, and when I asked Ms. English why, she said, "Because you can't write in italics by hand", which confused me, because I can. And often do. (it's not that hard.)
(thouhts within a thought)

[bubbles-san.livejournal.com]

Alice is amazing. As is Jacob, when he's not moping after Bella. (which amounts to all of about two paragraphs, really. But he is still amazing!) The story would have been so much better if it was about Alice being amazing, and Edward and Bella weren't even in it.

[vzg.livejournal.com]

Does this inconsistency bother you?

Yes! I do not know why my country didn't go, "Oh, so that's the way we've been doing it? Great, let's do it the same way." But alas, it is the one I must use. (Also, I totally hadn't realized that was the accepted British format and now feel dumb. I've only seen it a few times... and actually I've known a few times that the people doing it weren't British — but anyway, I had no idea. SADFACE.)

Also, I probably over-use out-of-dialogue quotation marks like I overuse italics, which probably turns a lot of people away from my writing.

[vzg.livejournal.com]

Heh, we had to underline, which made me go, "But... I can write in italics! You just need to turn the paper (or your hand) more!"

[vzg.livejournal.com]

ALTHOUGH— I want to say that the only way it really bothers me is with quotes within dialogue. Mostly with double quotes (and mostly because I haven't seen that with single quotes). I feel like the quote is ending and then OH WAIT IT ISN'T and probably some other grammar stuff that makes my head spin but I don't know the name to. Or something.

[rionaleonhart]

It is entirely grammatically correct! Putting commas and full stops after the closing quotation mark is the British style when a) the quotation marks do not surround direct speech, and b) the full stop doesn't obviously belong to what is inside the quotation marks (I can't think of a good example of this right now, alas). Another thing I do is use 'o' for '0'. is exactly what I or anyone else from Britain would write (er, assuming we used 'o' for '0', which I don't. See, there I put the comma outside the quotation marks).

Taking some quick examples from recent Livejournal posts of mine:

'subway' instead of 'tube',

In any case, she says something (probably adorably) that amounts to 'OH NO MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS'.

Colin just sits there going 'THANKS, GUYS'.

So you're not being grammatically incorrect; you're just using a system from a different country (and a system that I personally think makes more sense). Of course, this means it's not something that's yours and yours alone, I'm afraid, but at least it means you can justify your use.

The subject line comes from this scene in a television play called Nuts in May.

I really need a 'rambling about punctuation' icon.


(Edited for a typo.)

[rionaleonhart]

Whoops; when I said 'does this inconsistency bother you?', I meant my inconsistency in using double and single quotation marks for different purposes, rather than picking one and sticking to it.

ALTHOUGH— I want to say that the only way it really bothers me is with quotes within dialogue. Mostly with double quotes (and mostly because I haven't seen that with single quotes). I feel like the quote is ending and then OH WAIT IT ISN'T and probably some other grammar stuff that makes my head spin but I don't know the name to. Or something.

Doesn't America use single quotes for quotes within double-quoted dialogue? (Is that what you're talking about? I fear I may have confused myself.)

[vzg.livejournal.com]

D'oh. I swear I'm not drunk, really.

Nooo, the only issue it ever really concerns me with is dialogue, and so I tend to not really care one way or the other what people use outside dialogue.

And what I meant was when people use double quotes for dialogue, and then use double quotes AGAIN for something quoted with in the dialgoue, like so:

"I can't believe she'd do that." He dropped his head into his hands, fighting the urge to cry.

"That's what she said," his companion responded.

"That was a dumb joke."

"No, I mean, she said "I can't believe I'd do that.""

:[

[rionaleonhart]

I prefer double quotation marks for speech in fanfiction and singles for speech in handwriting or published novels, but I think that's just because it's what I'm used to in each case. If it's not speech, though, doubles look incredibly odd to me no matter what the format.

[bubbles-san.livejournal.com]

Then perhaps I'll vary the punctuation, etc. based on the character that's speaking. (Erin would probably use a quirky, unique to her style thatfits somewhere between American and British, while Morgan would perhaps use a very very grammatically correct style, given that the girl I based her off of was very into correct grammar. Whereas I only cared about spelling.)

[bubbles-san.livejournal.com]

I tried to write in italics once, to show my teacher I could, but he just said that with my handwriting it was impossible to be sure if it was italics or if I was just too lazy to turn my paper. (which was a bit ridiculous, because I do it by tilting my hand more, not the paper.) I don't know what he was talking about. My handwriting isn't that bad; I just have a bad habit of trying write in fonts (usually made up) based on where I'm at on the page and how I see someone's voice in my head. And somehow combining cursive and print. I'm not sure how I do that.

[rionaleonhart]

I'm surprised by the number of people who do it, considering it doesn't actually show up in published works. Clearly, our cut-up-and-stitched-together punctuation is superior to any generally accepted system.

[rionaleonhart]

That's interesting, because I've noticed that most people who've said they use that mismatched system have been British. I don't know whether that's because Americans are less likely to be exposed to single quotes than British people are to be exposed to doubles or just because I have more British people than Americans on my flist.

[justspaz.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm secretly British. Or just an anomaly. Then again, I've read a lot of HP fanfic, most of it either written by British people or Brit-picked to look that way.

I will say that I've noticed my Sherlock Holmes collection uses "" for speech and '' for speech-within-speech, which might be because it was adapted in a more American-friendly way.

[rionaleonhart]

I think, although I can't be sure because I don't have it here, that my Holmes collection, which is an absolute replica of the original Strand short stories, may do the same thing. I think double quotes may have been the style in Britain until some point during the early twentieth century, perhaps.

[justspaz.livejournal.com]

Hmm. An interesting development. Language styles adapt so much though, that in ten years we will be like the Russians and use <<>> for quotes.

Or not.

[wolfenkahlon.livejournal.com]

"I've always done speech like this." He said.

And thought like this. He thought.

With single quotes for certain... 'emphasis' on words, and for indirect quotes.

Except with using italics to quote chunks of stuff from posts on the internet when I'm going to be replying below.

[rionaleonhart]

Is the "I've always done speech like this." He said as opposed to "I've always done speech like this," he said intentional? Because, technically, it should be the latter. (I wrote a quick guide to punctuating dialogue a few years ago, if you're interested. Why, yes, this is the sort of thing I do for fun.)

[wolfenkahlon.livejournal.com]

Not intentional, although some of the rules on the punctuation just make my head hurt.

Now I have to wonder about my doing thoughts in italics... because they're technically speech in someone's head, but they can't always follow those rules because it looks odd, but if I put them in quotes it looks confusing... which is probably why I started describing thoughts instead of quoting them.

I actually have read your guide and keep it bookmarked for when I'm editing fic into final, readable form.

It made me so happy to know I could avoid awkward breaks when a new speaker begins in the middle of a paragraph of description.

[rionaleonhart]

I use italics for thoughts sometimes. I think it's a perfectly acceptable way of indicating them. Certainly better than putting them in quotation marks, which just confuses me immensely.