'When we was ...'

[Dick Whitman]

Faced with quotes like this, what do you do?

"When we was up about 29 points, just [Manning's] whole emotion was kind of like he was dry," McDaniel said, according to NFL.com. "Just the whole team looked like they was giving up, and once we scored again, I knew it was over."

http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2013/story/_/id/10395376/super-bowl-xlviii-peyton-manning-says-embarrassing-insulting-word

 

[ColdCat]

Since I cover mostly high school sports, I'll clean it up for the kids. No need to make a 16-year old look bad. An adult is on his own though.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I was taught to always clean it up unless it changed the context of the quote. I'm not saying that is the right or wrong way to do it, but that was what I did because that's how I was taught as an intern.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I was taught to always clean it up unless it changed the context of the quote. I'm not saying that is the right or wrong way to do it, but that was what I did because that's how I was taught as an intern.

Yeah, I don't care about McDaniel. I do care about readers forced to muddle through that. It's jarring.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I had an incident where a college player said he didn't say something that I quoted him saying in a story. The coach (a good guy) called me and asked me about it and said the player said it was taken out of context. I told him, "I have the tape and I'd be happy to play it for you. That specific part of the quote is exact, but I did edit 10 'You know what I'm sayins?' from the rest of his comments.

He laughed and that was that.

 

[1HPGrad]

Clean it up. Use parenthesis if that makes you more comfortable.
But when Richard Petty says he "blowed a tire" you leave it the hell alone. That's King Speak.

 

[User 11148]

Clean it up. Use parenthesis if that makes you more comfortable.
But when Richard Petty says he "blowed a tire" you leave it the hell alone. That's King Speak.

"The car run strong" is also the King's English ...

 

[Rhody31]

I won't touch syntax or grammar errors in someone's speech.
I will change accents.
In Rhode Island there isn't a word that ends in R, so when I print a quote that says "I got the pitch I was looking for and I hit a homer" it was probably closer to "I got da pitch I was lookin faw and I hit a homah."

 

[Mark2010]

Makes you wonder what classes these people took in college. Or even high school.

 

[MisterCreosote]

Never edit quotes. That's why "paraphrasing" exists if you're uncomfortable with someone's exact quote.

As the man says, "once you edit a quote, it ain't a quote anymore."

 

[trifectarich]

Never edit quotes. That's why "paraphrasing" exists if you're uncomfortable with someone's exact quote.

As the man says, "once you edit a quote, it ain't a quote anymore."

Be that as it may, it's going to be rare when I don't change "gonna" to "going to" and a dozen other similar examples.

 

[MisterCreosote]

Never edit quotes. That's why "paraphrasing" exists if you're uncomfortable with someone's exact quote.

As the man says, "once you edit a quote, it ain't a quote anymore."

Be that as it may, it's going to be rare when I don't change "gonna" to "going to" and a dozen other similar examples.

Be that as it may, and don't take this personally, I would never hire someone who admitted that to me.

You admitted to misrepresenting reality, however minor, and I have no way of knowing what else you'd misrepresent.

It's not our job to fix our subject's grammar. If the person you're quoting can't speak, then either quote exactly, paraphrase, do without, or get someone coherent to say the same thing.

That's four options you have before getting to altering the reality of the situation.

If the subject doesn't like the way the quote makes him/her look, then maybe they'll speak differently next time. Again, not our problem.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Never edit quotes. That's why "paraphrasing" exists if you're uncomfortable with someone's exact quote.

As the man says, "once you edit a quote, it ain't a quote anymore."

Be that as it may, it's going to be rare when I don't change "gonna" to "going to" and a dozen other similar examples.

"You Got To Believe!" -- Tug McGraw

 

[RickStain]

Same as always:

I used to be on the "cleaning up is changing reality" side, but later converted to the "written English and spoken English are two different languages, and there's nothing wrong with translating one to the other."

 

[BB Bobcat]

If you're writing a feature and the purpose of the story is to paint a picture of the person, I'd be more inclined to leave quotes verbatim because you are adding to the story by letting readers know exactly how this person talks, which tells them a little about who they are.

However, if it's just some game story or a notebook, the purpose is to relay information, so there's no need to either **** off your sources or jar the readers.

 

[MisterCreosote]

There IS a need. It's called accuracy and not altering reality. There's no need to sacrifice journalistic ethics to keep your sources happy. I'm not convinced readers care one way or the other.

Also, Rick, if you want a quote that looks good in "written English," have your subject submit it in writing, or PARAPHRASE it. Otherwise, if he/she is speaking, write it as they said it.

That's the whole reason quotation marks exist: to signal the reader that what follows is "spoken English" rather than "written English."

 

[BB Bobcat]

Mister Creasote, I'm glad to be in the presence if someone who has never "altered reality" by correctly quoting 99 percent of someone's words.

Gold star for you

 

[MisterCreosote]

What does that have to do with anything?

Does it make editing quotes less wrong if MisterCreosote has done it at some point? No.

And, for the record, I altered reality once in my journalism career, via a misunderstanding.

I lost my job for it. As I should have.

 

[Versatile]

"Gonna" is not a word. It's no different than Rhody31 changing "homah" to "homer."

Grammar and syntax errors are different. I consider the context of the quote. It would be rather stupid to burn an important source because you refused to clean up one syntactical error in his quote from a one-on-one interview. But in news conferences, stick to what was said.

 

[MisterCreosote]

"Gonna" is not a word. It's no different than Rhody31 changing "homah" to "homer."

"Gonna" is slang. Used as a substitute for or contraction of proper English.

"Homah" and "homer" are the same word, just pronounced differently depending on the speaker's accent.

They are totally different scenarios.