7.14 Reporting someone's actual words: quote structures

When you want to say that a person used particular words, you use a quote structure. You can do this even if you do not know, or do not remember, the exact words that were spoken. When you use a quote structure, you report what someone said as if you were using their own words.

Quote structures are sometimes called direct speech. A quote structure consists of two clauses. One clause is the reporting clause, which contains the reporting verb.

• 'I knew I'd seen you,' I said.
• 'Only one,' replied the Englishman.

The other part is the quote, which represents what someone says or has said.

• 'Let's go and have a look at the swimming-pool,' she suggested.
• 'Leave me alone,' I snarled.

You can quote anything that someone says --- statements, questions, orders, suggestions, and exclamations. In writing, you use inverted commas (' ') or (" ") at the beginning and end of a quote.

• 'Thank you,' I said.
• After a long silence he asked: 'What is your name?'

Note that, in written stories, quotes can be used without reporting clauses if the speakers have been established, and if you do not wish to indicate what kind of utterances the quotes are.

• 'When do you leave?' --- 'I should be gone now.' --- 'Well, good-bye, Hamo.'

7.15

Thinking is sometimes represented as speaking to oneself. You can therefore use some verbs which refer to thinking as reporting verbs in quote structures.

• I must go and see Lynn, Marsha thought.

When you are using a quote structure to say what someone thought, you usually omit the inverted commas at the beginning and end of the quote.

• How much should he tell her? Not much, he decided.
• Perhaps that's no accident, he reasoned.
• Was Cynthia, he wondered, beginning to yield at last?

7.16

Here is a list of reporting verbs which are often used with quote structures:

• add, admit, advise, agree, announce, answer, argue, ask, assert, assure, beg, begin, boast, claim, command, comment, complain, conclude, confess, continue, decide, declare, demand, explain, grumble, inquire, insist, muse, observe, order, plead, ponder, pray, proclaim, promise, read, reason, recite, reflect, remark, reply, report, respond, say, state, suggest, tell, think, urge, vow, warn, wonder, write

A few of these verbs can or must be used with an object referring to the hearer. See paragraphs 7.71 to 7.72.