Quotes are sacred

[Twoback]

No this is an idiotic premise --- if a guy calls someone by some obscure nickname, I am not going to waste five words explaining who said guy is and why.

For instance,

if a guy says "Frenchster hit him hard" said frank

My version will be "[Smith] hit him hard" said frank

As opposed to "Frenchster hit him hard" said frank in reference to Smith.

That's just stupid. Save words, make it flow. You are not changing the man's meaning.

What's wrong with just this:

Frank said Smith "hit him hard."

Why do you need the parentheses?

Parentheses have become the crutch of modern journalism. When I started in this business, just slightly after spnited and Red Smith, you'd see them about 5 percent as often as you do now.

 

[Some Guy]

No this is an idiotic premise --- if a guy calls someone by some obscure nickname, I am not going to waste five words explaining who said guy is and why.

For instance,

if a guy says "Frenchster hit him hard" said frank

My version will be "[Smith] hit him hard" said frank

As opposed to "Frenchster hit him hard" said frank in reference to Smith.

That's just stupid. Save words, make it flow. You are not changing the man's meaning.

What's wrong with just this:

Frank said Smith "hit him hard."

Why do you need the parentheses?

Parentheses have become the crutch of modern journalism. When I started in this business, just slightly after spnited and Red Smith, you'd see them about 5 percent as often as you do now.

I agree they are vastly overused.
I agree they are sometimes neccessary.
I agree with everyone! Kum-bay-yah.

 

[inthesuburbs]

That's a perfect example.

Do this:

Smith "hit him hard," Frank said.


Or this:

He said Smith "hit him hard."


Or because the words in the quote are not remarkable:

He said Smith hit him hard.


Not this:

"[Smith] hit him hard," said Frank.


Why?

a. Frank didn't say that. If you're not saying what he said, it's not a quote.

b. The reader has no idea what Frank actually said. "My mother could have hit him hard." "That asshat hit him hard." "It would have been better if he had hit him hard." Etc. Seriously, are you changing it because Frank can't talk, or because Frank got the name wrong. The reader will wonder. Why? Because it's not a quote.

c. It's ugly. There is no universe in which good clean prose is full of brackets. If you try to set up the quote, or follow the quote, and more often to truncate the quote, you never need them.

d. Oh, and "said Frank" is silly. Only children's authors and sportswriters write this way. It's "Frank said."

All of this, of course, leaves open the question: Why do reporters focus so hard on getting a quote, any quote, even a lame quote, when getting clear information is really what the reader craves.

If you've ever been interviewed, you know that the good reporters seek to understand what happened, and enough detail to explain it to the reader. The rest are just waiting to write down a quote.

 

[Ace]

Ouch. In the suburbs with a haymaker in the first round.

I'd say something snotty to the newbie if he didn't happen to be 100 percent correct. Plus, he said asshat.

 

[goalmouth]

Roy Blount covered this issue succinctly in Three Bricks Shy of a Load, quoting Dwight White on an interception:

"I did my hands like this, and the muf****er stuck."

 

[SF_Express]

Bringing up Roy Blount Jr. reminded me of this piece, so I dug it out and republished it. Sorry for the minor threadjack, but with all the things going on in the business, something to enjoy. And yes, it talks about quotes:

http://sportswritingediting.blogspot.com/2008/12/on-lighter-side.html

 

[Montezuma's Revenge]

You know, SF, you just really seem to get it. You're one of those guys I wish I'd have worked with at some point.

 

[Football_Bat]

Every quote is sacred

Every quote is great

If a quote is wasted

Jolly gets quite irate

 

[SF_Express]

You know, SF, you just really seem to get it. You're one of those guys I wish I'd have worked with at some point.

Thanks, man...just happen to love the business.

 

[editorhoo]

This thread reminds of a quote from a pro boxer in the late 70s or early 80s who was asked about the possibility of a knockout in an upcoming bout:

"If there bees any knocking out done, I bees the one that do it."

Wish I could remember who the dude was. Maybe it was Clubber Lang.

 

[inthesuburbs]

Here's a perfect example from today's Boston Herald, illustrating why we should never put our words inside someone else's quote.

Joe Fitzgerald writes about Jim Rice:

---

To be sure, he wasn’t a barrel of laughs during the 16 seasons he played for the Sox, and he certainly didn’t endear himself to most writers, with whom he shared what could be termed an icy relationship, but baseball’s Hall of Fame is not about congeniality.

“I don’t want those (writers) loving me,” he once explained. “I don’t even want my teammates loving me. I just want them to respect me.”

http://tinyurl.com/7hjxqb

---

So, what did Jim Rice say?

A. "I don't want those guys loving me."

B. "I don't want those assholes loving me."

C. Who knows.

What in the world is the point of quoting someone if you're not going to tell the readers what he said?

Why don't editors keep this kind of (nonsense) out of print?

 

[Some Guy]

Here's a perfect example from today's Boston Herald, illustrating why we should never put our words inside someone else's quote.

I disagree with your premise that this illustrates why we should "never" do this. If there is a way around it, I'd agree that parentheses are best avoided.

But "never" is a big word.

Also, I'd point out that we are not in the stenography business.

 

[DirtyDeeds]

Are you implying that he wasn't referring to the writers? If not, I don't see the point. I think it's part of our job to interpret the meaning of the quotes and help the readers understand them. Like I said before, you'd better be sure he's referring to the writers, but if he is I have no problem with this. You saying that the average reader might look at that and say "I bet he called them assholes!"? Sure, if you can write around it, do it, but this quote is not a problem in my mind.

 

[imjustagirl]

But the point at which you go out of your way to say he's not about congeniality...then edit out the only non-congenial (assumed) word in the quote...it defeats the entire setup.

 

[DirtyDeeds]

Hmmm. I didn't really look at it that way. Just saw it as a statement and a quote that shows he doesn't care what other people think. There probably a better way to do it. If he indeed said assholes, there's probably a way to make it more obvious/powerful (depending on your shop's style/guidelines).

 

[imjustagirl]

(expletive) to start with.

But still...if you don't want to have an expletive in your paper, then putting [expletive] in a quote defeats the purpose because everyone reading it will say "assholes" in its place, or "sunsabitches" or whatever else they deem. Doesn't lessen the likelihood of someone thinking it if it's not there.

Use it, or don't.

 

[DirtyDeeds]

I think most papers have a policy for this, and most probably go the (expletive) route. I see your point on that, but I think there's a difference between letting the reader make the inference and spelling it out. I just don't think most papers are ready to use the profanity in print, and I can see the reasoning for that. My paper will use it if it's critical to a story, but this probably wouldn't qualify.

 

[imjustagirl]

Right. So just don't use the quote. Write around it.

Rice once said he didn't want writers loving him, or even his teammates. He merely wanted them to respect him.


There. You use the info you think is important, and you don't bastardize someone else's words.

 

[DirtyDeeds]

Agreed. A good writer/editor can write around most of these problems.

 

[imjustagirl]

I just re-read that and realized it was horribly written. I'm not one of those "good writers" you're talking about. But I'll leave it so people can laugh at me. :D