Sunday, October 24, 2010

Chapter 8- Quotations

I decided to revisit this post because I knew that I could look at the use of quotation marks within quotations. After reviewing the paragraph, I now believe that there is an error here- more about that in a minute. On page 196 of the text, the extract indicates that copyeditors are expected peruse the document to ensure that quotation marks are properly paired. (Now back to my original point.) At the very end of the paragraph there are two sets of quotation marks, however, one is without a mate.

Am I right about this? When paragraphs are littered with punctuation things can get confusing.

"“My list of pet language peeves,” she once told The Key Reporter, the Phi Beta Kappa newsletter, “would certainly include writers’ use of indirection (i.e., slipping new information into a narrative as if the reader already knew it); confusion between restrictive and non-restrictive phrases and clauses (‘that’ goes with restrictive clauses, and, ordinarily, ‘which’ with nonrestrictive); careless repetition; and singular subjects with plural verbs and vice versa.” She was a fiend for problems of sequence and logic. In her presence, modifiers dared not dangle. She could find a solecism in a Stop sign.""

2 comments:

Pat said...

Yikes, look verrry suspicious. I will check this one out...

Pat said...

I would edit the quotation this way (I'm separating double punctuation marks to let each stand out):

" ' My list of pet language peeves,' she once told The Key Reporter, the Phi Beta Kappa newsletter, 'would certainly include writers’ use of indirection (i.e., slipping new information into a narrative as if the reader already knew it); confusion between restrictive and non-restrictive phrases and clauses ("that" goes with restrictive clauses, and, ordinarily, "which" with nonrestrictive); careless repetition; and singular subjects with plural verbs and vice versa.' She was a fiend for problems of sequence and logic. In her presence, modifiers dared not dangle. She could find a solecism in a Stop sign."

Now if this was set as a block quotation, it would look as follows:

"My list of pet language peeves," she once told The Key Reporter, the Phi Beta Kappa newsletter, "would certainly include writers’ use of indirection (i.e., slipping new information into a narrative as if the reader already knew it); confusion between restrictive and non-restrictive phrases and clauses ('that' goes with restrictive clauses, and, ordinarily, 'which' with nonrestrictive); careless repetition; and singular subjects with plural verbs and vice versa." She was a fiend for problems of sequence and logic. In her presence, modifiers dared not dangle. She could find a solecism in a Stop sign.

And if it appeared in my publication, I would also change the parentheses to brackets.