Exchanging quotes from »« to «»

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Then "most books" are wrong, as far as I know. Have you checked actual printed books from respectable publishers?

not sure if we still own any of those
I think that in "most books" that I read, the characters only speak for single paragraphs - Maybe I should get my "reading age" seen to
I do notice when there is is no close quote.

I am currently re-reading Game of Thrones series, but a quick random epub check did not turn up any two-paragraph speeches.

So, turning to Anne Rice (epub)- now there's an author whose characters can filibuster for pages at a time... Interview with the vampire is pretty much all written as speech, in which the lead character also recounts conversations with others, so it's a rats nest of embedded punctuation. She does leaves off closing quotes on all but a final paragraph.

[Arran]

Very interesting your discussion here. The only thing what interests me is to change the German way of using »...« to the Swiss way «...». And this is only important in Books written in German, as 98% of books written in English use anyway the typographically wrong "...". See Wikipedia about correct quotation marks..
But that would probably merit another topic.

I have tried it with «eschwarz's» suggestion search after «»([^«»]*)«» and replace with «\1». That did the job with a book of 225 pages perfectly.

So thanks all again for your help.

[JSWolf]

The way it works is that the first paragraph with speech starts with a quote. It does not end with a quote. The next paragraphs that continues the speech starts with a qoute and if that's the end of the speech, it ends with a quote.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by cybmole;2919496So, turning to Anne Rice (epub)- now there's an author whose characters can filibuster for pages at a time... [I

Interview with the vampire[/I] is pretty much all written as speech, in which the lead character also recounts conversations with others, so it's a rats nest of embedded punctuation. She does leaves off closing quotes on all but a final paragraph.

And the way Anne Rice is doing it is correct. I've seen others do the same thing.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

"Some speech..."
"Some more speech by same person..."
"Last bit of speech by same person."

And from what Toxaris says that is common in Dutch.

BR

No, no. In Dutch this is common:

"Some speech...
Some more speech by same person...
Last bit of speech by same person."

So, closed sets that sometimes span multiple paragraphs.

[Arran]

Toxaris: in Switzerland as well.
I just consulted my book «Typography for Typesetters» by Walter Heuer, my professional bible during apprenticeship, and he confirms that for all german speaking countries. However, that book dates from 1962 and since were a few rule changes forth and back.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But then you still have to do it my way to handle any unmatched sets. So this is just one extra S/R that doesn't need to be done. Yes, you can get unmatched sets when you have a new paragraph in the middle of someone talking.

I did not think of that. Not sure how I'd deal with that, your solution certainly works but there should be a more elegant solution. Maybe impossible without a macro.

That is, unless based on the later discussion it doesn't matter for languages that would use a guillemet.

Possibly do as SmartyPants does and use two regexes, testing for the presence of preceding/succeeding text, which then blows up when random spaces are blatantly inserted.

I like using matched pairs to protect against the misuse of the character in question. Probably not important in a case of a character that has no other use, but still, on general principle...

Originally Posted by Arran

Very interesting your discussion here. The only thing what interests me is to change the German way of using »...« to the Swiss way «...». And this is only important in Books written in German, as 98% of books written in English use anyway the typographically wrong "...". See Wikipedia about correct quotation marks..
But that would probably merit another topic.

I have tried it with «eschwarz's» suggestion search after «»([^«»]*)«» and replace with «\1». That did the job with a book of 225 pages perfectly.

So thanks all again for your help.

Well, so long as it worked for the case used.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

I think there are two standards, at least in English (in German it has always been option 2) only, I think):


1)
"Some speech...

"Some more speech by same person...

"Last bit of speech by same person."


2)
"Some speech...

Some more speech by same person...

Last bit of speech by same person."


My impression is that 1) has become rarer.

2 is just plain wrong, I'm afraid. Anyone who uses it is ignorant of the correct way to punctuate English.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cybmole

So, turning to Anne Rice (epub)- now there's an author whose characters can filibuster for pages at a time... Interview with the vampire is pretty much all written as speech, in which the lead character also recounts conversations with others, so it's a rats nest of embedded punctuation. She does leaves off closing quotes on all but a final paragraph.

... and that is absolutely correct.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by HarryT

... and that is absolutely correct.

where would I find the applicable "rules" or "best practice" actually defined ?

I don't recall ever being taught this in English lessons - just that speech should be placed in quotation marks.

would it be in guides to grammar, or punctuation ?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cybmole

where would I find the applicable "rules" or "best practice" actually defined ?

I don't recall ever being taught this in English lessons - just that speech should be placed in quotation marks.

would it be in guides to grammar, or punctuation ?

I honestly don't know, I'm afraid. It's something I'm not consciously aware of not having known, if you see what I mean, although I'm sure I must have been taught it in an English lesson at some point in the dim and distant past.

It's definitely punctuation, not grammar. I imagine that any decent English "style guide" would cover it. Fowler's "Modern English Usage" (a well-known British English style guide) certainly does.

[icallaci]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

I think there are two standards, at least in English (in German it has always been option 2) only, I think):


1)
"Some speech...

"Some more speech by same person...

"Last bit of speech by same person."


2)
"Some speech...

Some more speech by same person...

Last bit of speech by same person."


My impression is that 1) has become rarer.

In English, #1 is correct. #2 is incorrect, although lately I have seen this construct when a poem is being quoted, so I wonder if things are changing.

[BetterRed]

@cybmole

Some "Blogs"

http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog
http://theeditorsblog.net/
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl
http://english.stackexchange.com/

Some "Bibles"

US Style Rules http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
UK Style Rules http://www.cam.ac.uk/brand-resources...al-style-guide


Punctuation - Why does the multi-paragraph quotation rule exist?

BR

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by icallaci

In English, #1 is correct. #2 is incorrect, although lately I have seen this construct when a poem is being quoted, so I wonder if things are changing.

Quoting poetry does seem to be the exception, in that you put open and close quote marks at the start and end of each verse of the poem.

[DaleDe]

I have an 18th century document that placed a " mark are the beginning of every line being quoted even within a paragraph. Unfortunately this flies in the face of reflow on an eBook so I had to modernize the rules for this.

Dale