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Anonymous Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

Reported speech within speech

So, this is a bit of a tricky one. How would you format a sentence a character had said within the speech of another? I was under the impression the speech would simply become italicised as I'm not sure on rules for using quote marks within quote marks, but advice would be helpful.

So in the phrase, "When I saw her she said, [where are you going?]" how would we format the second part?

Thanks in advance.
  

Top answer

You use single or double inverted commas, depending on what you started with. " When I saw her she said, ' Where are you going? ' " (I have left an unnecessary space between the closing single and double inverted commas to illustrate that ' comes before " .

— Rover_KE

  • You use single or double inverted commas, depending on what you started with.
  • " When I saw her she said, ' Where are you going?
  • ' " (I have left an unnecessary space between the closing single and double inverted commas to illustrate that ' comes before " .
  • However, your sentence contains no reported speech which you mentioned in your title.
  • It's speech within speech .
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2 Answers
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You use single or double inverted commas, depending on what you started with.

"When I saw her she said, 'Where are you going?' " (I have left an unnecessary space between the closing single and double inverted commas to illustrate that ' comes before ".

However, your sentenc
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I don't think you meant reported speech. Based on your example, use double quotation marks for the main speech, and single for the internal quotation, or the opposite way round; both are acceptable:

"When I saw her she said, 'Where are you going?'"
'When I saw her she said, "Where are you going?"'

Note the capital letter for the first word in the internal quote.

Bill
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