And a thought on what Birdcastle said about reading it aloud and having it make sense--that's a great guideline. There's a quote that says something to the effect of making yourself impossible to be misunderstood. I forget how it goes. Anyone?

I personally don't like the rule because I would never speak the way he is advocating, it sounds wrong to my ear. To me "We will eat at the Forthings' tonight." sounds much better than "We will eat at the Forthings's tonight."

Strunk & White is only one possible set of standards, so there are many grammatically correct things that can be done that Strunk & White would not do. With possessives for words that end in s (and I believe this might apply sometimes also to z, x, and ce, although I'm not sure), both the ' and the 's forms are correct -- so in this case it sounds like your preference (and mine) is to depart from Strunk & White on this point.

So underline just the name of the play, Hamlet.

The problem with those comes when a foreign word has become part of the English language, but how does one know that for sure?

(Example, does one underline "Que pasa?" or not?)

I think it depends on whether the word or phrase is considered foreign in the context in which it is used.

JOHN!

Bob picked up the letter and started reading aloud.
"'Dear Bob,
'I am madly in love with you.
'Sincerely,
Jane.'"

She labored over the pages of the book, taking in each word although she had lived through every new story. Eventually she reach the final page written in John's own hand.

Imagine you're looking in
a mirror,but not an
ordinary mirror. A mirror...

That's another point, no one's speaking--do I still need quotations? I wouldn't think so. For some reason I think a colon should go in there somewhere too.

JOHN!

I'm not retarded---just a little bit slow. Like Corky.

quote:

---

Bob picked up the letter and started reading aloud.
"'Dear Bob,
'I am madly in love with you.
'Sincerely,
Jane.'"

---

Because this is such a short letter, the format looks a little odd with the quotation-within-a-quotation marks. For shorter letters, I believe the following would be appropriate:

Bob picked up the letter and started reading aloud: "Dear Bob, I am madly in love with you. Sincerely, Jane."

Or:

Bob picked up the letter and started reading aloud:

"Dear Bob,
I am madly in love with you.
Sincerely,
Jane"

Then Bob did a cartwheel and broke his leg.

(My question here would be whether to put a period after "Jane." I think it would look weird there.)

(In the last example, I would center the letter, but this post won't let me do that.)

Albert slid the letter from the envelope with shaking hands and began to read.

quote:

---

Dear Albert,

While I am madly in love with you, my father says I must never see you again.

Cybil

PS - Did you catch "Will & Grace" yesterday? Funny!

---

The quoted document is indented from both margins and usually in a different typeface, but not centered.

Example 2: Albert reads the letter.

"What's it say?" said George.
"I haven't had the nerve to open it." Albert slid his finger into the envelope, but then slid it back out.
"You're such a wuss. Let me read it." George grabbed the envelope before Albert could react it. "Dear Albert, blah blah blah madly in love with you, blah blah blah. PS, did you see Will & Grace?"
"Is that all?" said Albert.
"She loves you. What more do you need to know?"

Example 3: A letter quoting someone else, in dialog.

"Read it for me," said Albert.
"Whatever," said George, and he picked up the letter. "Dear George: My father has said that I must never associate with 'that sniveling lump of guano' ever again. Of course he is talking about you, darling. Have you seen the new M&M's? They're gorgeous! Your sweetie, Cybil."

John's second question: If it's spoken and run in (not its own paragraph with extra spacing), then use quotes. If it's set off, then quotes aren't necessary. In general, set it off if it's ten or more typed lines.

John's third question: You can (but don't have to) use a colon if it's a phrase (not a complete sentence like "Bob said") introducing the quote and if the quote is longer than one sentence.

Now to Kolona: You're right. Since it was so short, it would've been better to keep it in the same paragraph. I was just using it to illustrate how one uses quotes for multiple paragraphs. For that specific quote, your two examples work well. You do need a period at the end to mark the end of the quote, even though there wasn't a period there in the quoted material.

PaganQuaker: Do you have a style guide or manual of some sort that says that? Chicago doesn't say anything other than that quotes within quotes (which I assume to apply to a letter being read aloud) go in separate quotes. I've never heard anything to the contrary, but that could just be because I'm not well-read enough. Please share.

But in that example, if I understand right, I didn't need the quotes -- because anything set-off whether spoken or thought doesn't -- but I did need the period.

Since I can't find a rule in Strunk and White or Chicago, I decided to check a real live book. I picked up Ender's Shadow and flipped to the beginning of a chapter. The email is set off (the margins are about a quarter inch wider, I believe) and there's no period after the sender's name. So there you go, I guess.

She peppered her conversation with many turns of phrases.
She peppered her coversation with many turn of phrases.
She peppered her conversation with many turns of phrase.

hope that makes some sense.

TTFN & lol

Regarding computer software programs - grammar and spelling check needs to be switched on to American English versus British English styles (if you are writing in American English style). Otherwise, you need to be fairly comfortable with both styles - most programs are automatically set for the British English version (which is more formal for sure)and could be causing some of the confusion.

And for those in the business/technical writing field - the rules are updated every couple of years to conform with "popular" (meaning widely used) grammar and formatting rules. The old 50's severely formal style is out. Some of you may still have supervisor's that insist upon writing in that style (you know - all past tense, CYA, "be" verbs, lengthy sentneces designed to confuse a triple Ph.D) in which case it is not worth spilling blood over . . . until YOU are the boss.

Happy grammaring! And many thanks for the reminders of how and when to use which particular word!

My original inclination was to treat the phrase according to its individual parts and go with "turns of phrase." Then I made the mistake of thinking of similar examples.

To wit: In phrases like "turns of the steering wheel," although there are multiple turns of the wheel, there is still only one steering wheel, whereas in the sentence I listed above, there are multiple phrases, many of them turned. If we equalize the two phrases, and imagine (after all, this is an SF site) a car with two or more steering wheels, we would say "turns of the wheels," which is why I began to entertain the possibility of "turns of phrases" in the first place.

"Many phrases" won't work because a phrase doesn't have the same connotation as a "turn of phrase." She might use many phrases, but none of them may be particularly notable.

Yes, like a number of words/phrases, once you start looking at it intently, it does seem strange, but "turn of phrase" is a bona fide cliche.

TTFN &

If he was going to leave....
If he were going to leave....

If I was going to leave....
If I were going to leave....

In the subjunctive, "were" is the proper form of the verb.

If I were going....

If you were going....

It's kind of like the question of when to use "whom." If you use either of them properly, it can sound a little strange to most English-speaking listeners.

But if you don't use them properly, you can sound uneducated to those who do know how to use them.

However, in the example you give, you are writing the thoughts of a character, and you have to ask yourself if the character would know how to use subjunctive.

In the first short story I had published, I had a character for whom English was her second language. I had her use "was" in a subjunctive sentence, and when the editor asked me about it, I explained that I was willing to risk looking like I didn't know how to use subjunctive because I wanted to show the character not knowing how to use it.

English has three moods: indicative, imperative, and subjunctive. The indicative mood expresses facts:

I am happy.

The imperative mood gives commands.

Be happy. (Though this is a second-person address, it's "be" instead of "are.")

The subjunctive mood expresses requirement, suggestion, desire, possibility, etc.

It's necessary that you be happy.
If I were rich, I'd be happy.

For all verbs except "be," the only change occurs in the third-person present tense. All that happens is the "s" drops off the end. For forms of "be," the present tense becomes "be," and the past becomes "were." Because the subjunctive is only noticeable in third-person present and "be" verbs, most people don't even know it exists, and it's slowly fading away. I've actually heard of people correcting "if I were" to "if I was." Sad.

anyway, i have always hated learning the names for every little aspect of English. the whole language seems too confusing to set out rules--there will invariably be an exception. i think the best way to learn English is to just read, then you can really get a feel for how to effectively communicate.

TTFN & lol

Cosmi

PS: i just read through my post and it made me groan. not so much because i disagree with myself, but because i despise anything that must be learned by "getting a feel for it". but how else can you learn a language? to memorize every rule and then go through them each time you want to form a sentence would be incredibly tedious....{sigh} now i'm just rambling.

by watching (visual learners)

by hearing (aural learners)

by getting a feel for it (kinesthetic learners)

and you could include taste and smell in there for some kinds of information.

Different people learn in different ways, and they learn different kinds of things in those different ways, as well.

Learning grammar by reading is probably more of a visual learning process than it is a kinesthetic one.

Hearing a language as you are growing up is more aural, and the grammar is learned implicitly and subconsciously more than it is learned explicitly and by rules.