Type of usage speech.

Question

Rochester warns Downs, "Young man, you will die of this company."

When opening speech why do we drop 'saying'?

Rochester warns Downs saying, Young man, you will die of this company.

Any right or wrong in this?

As I understand it in narrative writing you introduce the characters full names first and can refer to them this way once they have been established (Surnames).

Is the whole structure viewed as the main clause or just the complete sentence in the form of a quote?

Rochester warns Downs (is this a fragment alone? Where does it stand grammatically without the speech?

Clive · Accepted Answer

You don't seem to like using actual quotation marks. I don't know why not.

You don't have to introduce every piece of direct speech by using the verb 'say'. That would become annoying and tiresome. Rochester warns Downs is fine We easily understand that the direct speech which follows is the warning.

You can refer to your characters any way you wish. You don't even have to give them names at all. But introducing someone as 'Jim Smith' and then calling him 'Smith' is fine if you want to do that.

Rochester warns Downs, "Young man, you will die of this company."

This is all a single sentence. It's just that sentences that give direct speech are a little hard to classify. I'd say the important thing is to be able to understand them and write them, not to give them names.

Clive

Type of usage speech.

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions