Speech - capitalisation

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Anonymous

#521597 Sun, 01 Jun 08 12:37 PM

Hey everyone - any help with the following would be most appreciated

(1) My dad always used to say, "Work hard".

Am I correct in capitalising "work" in this instance; indeed, have I used the comma correctly after say? I know that in direct speech that this would be ok, but I'm unsure as to how it all works in indirect speech.

(2) My dad always used to say that "working hard" is an important virtue to have.

Am I correct in not capitalising "working" here?

Thanks everyone!

Anonymous

Commas, Direct speech, Indirect speech

Cool Breeze

#521665 Sun, 01 Jun 08 02:36 PM

Sentence 1 is fine if you place the period/full stop right after hard, before the quotation mark. The comma after say is correct as well. A colon could be used instead of it and is quite common if the quotation is long.

Sentence 2 is fine with me as it is. I wouldn't put working hard in quotes at all and to have appears redundant to me. There are different ways to see and do things. If you want to write sentence 2 the way you have written it, by all means, do! I abhor uniformity. Smile

Cool Breeze

Joined on Fri, Apr 7 2006

Helsinki, Finland

Senior Member (2,867)

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Colons, Commas, Quotation marks

Anonymous

#521674 Sun, 01 Jun 08 02:51 PM

Thanks for your reply. I'm a bit confused about the whole period right after hard. Being in the UK, I always thought the period should go after the quotation mark in an instance such as this. Any advice on this? Thanks!

Anonymous

Quotation marks

Cool Breeze

#521695 Sun, 01 Jun 08 03:41 PM

Anonymous
Thanks for your reply. I'm a bit confused about the whole period right after hard. Being in the UK, I always thought the period should go after the quotation mark in an instance such as this. Any advice on this? Thanks!

Hmm... As I said, I abhor uniformity. However, I don't think putting the period after the quotation mark is very common. This is from The Independent's web site:

He added: "If we were to change now we would destroy the consistency and stability that business craves and private sector investors need."

Cool Breeze

Quotation marks