THEY PLAN TO PUBLISH THEIR ARTICLE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES.CALLING AL...

40.They plan to publish their article in The New York Times.

Calling All Overachievers: Extra

Practice with Quotation Marks

Tommy Brainfree’s classic composition is reproduced in Figure 8-1. Identify ten spotswhere a set of quotation marks needs to be inserted. Place the quotation marks cor-rectly in relation to other punctuation in the sentence. Also, underline titles whereappropriate.What I Did during Summer Vacationby Tommy BrainfreeThis summer I went to Camp Waterbug, which was the setting for a famous poem by William Long entitled Winnebago My Winnebago. At Camp Waterbug I learned to paddle a canoe without tipping it over more than twice a trip. My counselor even wrote an article about me in the camp newsletter, Waterbug Bites. The article was called How to Tip a Canoe. The counselor said, Brainfree is well named. I was not upset because I believed him (eventually) when he explained that the comment was an editing error.Are you sure? I asked him when I first read it.You know, he responded quickly, that I have a lot of respect for you. I nodded in agreement, but that night I placed a bunch of frogs under his sheets, just in case he thought about writing How to Fool a Camper. One of the frogs had a little label on his leg that read JUST KIDDING TOO.At the last campfire gathering I sang a song from the musical Fiddler on the Roof. The song was called If I Were a Rich Man. I Figure 8-1:changed the first line to If I were a counselor. I won’t quote the rest of the Sampleschoolsong because I’m still serving the detention my counselor gave me, even report sansquotationthough I’m back home now.marks.

Answers to Quotation Problems

a

“I plan to pitch,” added Becky, who once tried out for the Olympics.The directly quotedwords, I plan to pitch,are enclosed in quotation marks. The comma that sets off the speaker tag added Beckygoes inside the closing quotation mark.

b

Andy interrupted‚ “As usual I will play third base.”The speaker tag comes first in this sen-tence, so the comma is placed before the opening quotation mark. The period that ends thesentence goes inside the closing quotation mark.

c

No one knew how to answer Andy, who in the past has been called “overly sensitive.”Thequotation is short, but it still deserves double quotation marks. Single quotation marks, inAmerican usage, are reserved for embedded quotations. British custom is different, perhapsbecause they eat all those cucumber sandwiches. The period at the end of the sentence isplaced, as periods always are in American usage, inside the closing quotation mark. Notice thatthis quotation doesn’t have a speaker tag, so it isn’t preceded by a comma, and it doesn’t startwith a capital letter.

d

Gus said, “No one wanted Andy at third base”; the entire Snyder family has terribly slowreaction time. The speaker tag is followed by a comma. A semicolon always goes outside theclosing quotation mark, unless you’re quoting a long passage that has a semicolon somewhereinside. A period ends the sentence.

e

“Who wants to win?” asked the boss in a commanding, take-no-prisoners tone.Because the quoted words are a question, the question mark goes inside the closing quotation mark.Okay, everybody knows that boss’s questions aren’t real questions — they’re more like threats.Grammatically speaking, however, they fall into the question category and thus take a questionmark.

f

Did she mean it when she said that we were “not hard-boiled enough to play decently”?Thequoted words aren’t a question, but the entire sentence is. The question mark belongs outsidethe closing quotation mark. By the way, if both the sentence and the quotation are questions,the question mark belongs inside the closing quotation mark.

g

Sarah remarked, “I dare anyone to call Andy soft!”A comma separates the speaker tag (Sarahremarked)from the quotation and precedes the opening quotation mark. Because the quotedwords are an exclamation, the exclamation point belongs inside the closing quotation mark.

h

The opposing team, everyone knows, is “first in the league and last in our company’s heart”!The hint in parentheses gives rationale for the answer. Because the whole statement is an excla-mation, the exclamation point belongs outside the closing quotation mark.

i

“The odds favor our opponents,” sighed Becky, “but I will not give up.”Here’s an interruptedquotation, with the speaker tag in the middle. Unlike the rude comments that seem to occurevery five minutes when I’m trying to make a point about grammar, this sort of interruption isperfectly proper. Just be sure that the two parts of the quotation are punctuated correctly. Inthis question, the quoted material makes up one sentence, so the second half begins with alowercase letter.If each part of the quotation can stand alone as a complete sentence (see Chapter 4 for moredetail), don’t run the two together as one sentence. Instead, put a period after the speaker tagand make the second half of the quotation into a separate sentence enclosed in quotationmarks. Or, place a period after the first half of the quotation and capitalize the first word of therest of the quotation. Here’s an example, adapted from question 9: “The odds favor our oppo-nents,” sighed Becky. “I will not give up.”