Please help
Hi. I asked yesterday if someone could help me punctuate this dialogue for me:
Can I ask what happened between you? Why she ended up leaving. Or do you prefer not to talk about it?
My dialogue was corrected to this:
Can I ask what happened between you? Why did she end ed up leaving? Or do you prefer not to talk about it?
Which is correct of course, but isn't my original dialogue colloquial as well? It might be punctuated wrong, though.
Top answer
anonymous Which is correct of course, but isn't my original dialogue colloquial as well? No, it is not grammatically correct according to the rules of standard English.
- anonymous Which is correct of course, but isn't my original dialogue colloquial as well?
- No, it is not grammatically correct according to the rules of standard English.
Get the Weekly English Kit 📬
New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.
anonymousWhich is correct of course, but isn't my original dialogue colloquial as well?
No, it is not grammatically correct according to the rules of standard English.
0anonymousCan I ask what happened between you? Why she ended up leaving. Or do you prefer not to talk about it?
You might punctuate it as shown below. and is optional, but it certainly helps show that the why-clause is connected to can I ask. In very informal speech, even I mean can substitute for that and.
Can
0The normal rules do not hold for speech. If that's what the person said, that's what they said, and we do our best to render it in writing without offending the eye too much. We don't speak in punctuation, and we often do not use grammatically complete sentences. Your original version was perfect.
0
Related Questions