Please stop putting your words inside someone else's quotation marks

Stop putting your words in people's quotes, dammit!

 

And stop snitching!

 

This is the weirdest goddamn nitpick I've seen on this board.

 

bitches who snitch end up in (fucking) ditches.

 

And it's not the first from the OP on this issue. I guess it's his thing.

 

I'm not perfect ... I'm no snitch ... but I can tell you ... she's a b----

 

Perhaps he said, "That was one of the craziest I've ever been a part of," following a question about the inning.

I assume you were also mad about "We got exposed there in the ninth," Florida coach Kevin O'Sullivan said. "Nobody likes to lose, but I'm glad it happens this week and not next (in an NCAA regional). Trust me, we'll get that cleaned up."?

 

this thread has officially gone off the rails. (i'm growing out my beard!)

 

Thought this thread sounded familiar ...

 

Don't agree with you, ITS, although your approach on this thread is of somebody who's 100 percent sure he's right.

Parenthetical references in quotes are part of the business. (Our style is brackets for inserted material.)

I DO happen to think they're overdone when what the word that's been replaced is referring to is clear from context.

If quotes are "sacred," then I hope every time you write (or edit) a quote where the speaker says, "I, um, well, I sort of, um, think that we, you know, had a great, um, quarter, but, um, well, there were opportunities to, you know, open up the, um, lead even, um, a little more" you leave it exactly as is. And I hope that the syntax of every speaker, from Larry Bird to whoever else you want to name, is left absolutely untouched.

If you say, "That's different," then you've opened the wiggle room where your argument is gone. If you RUN those quotes verbatim, well, OK then.

Actually, the only debate I've ever had with this was with a top editor who said you must not take out the word you're clarifying, so it would be "it [inning]" in his world. I've always thought it was OK to simply replace it.

 

Does it make it easier for the reader to understand?

Yes.

Have a nice day.