'When we was ...'

One might say that's a pointless and impossible distinction.

Really no need to belabor the stalemate.

 

Agreed.

 

Do you tape everything and transcribe it? Or scribble stuff down on a notepad?

 

Wouldn't a high percentage of quotes (especially with high school and college athletes) contain the word "umm" scattered throughout if everyone wrote them verbatim?

 

For sure.

 

And lots of commas to indicate pauses.

 

A point debated and addressed no fewer than four times in this very thread.

 

Partial quotes like that are terrible. You really need a second or at least a later attribution there.

 

Your face needs a second or at least a later attribution.

 

Everyone on this site is stupid except for you.

We get it.

 

I can see both sides of the argument, but I can't understand how someone could feel that passionate about it one way or the other.

 

Assuming you're referring to me, it's because if you "polish" a quote, I have no way of knowing what else you might "polish." I worked in news, and managed teams of reporters for years, and if one of them admitted to editing a quote, I would suspend them right away until I could determine what else, if anything, they may have altered.

But again, I'm not in journalism anymore, having been drummed out years ago. No one is going to lose sleep over what I think of their work.