*cue inner grammar pedant*
There's a grammatical mistake that I've been seeing all over the place lately. Like ... just about every third story I read. It's not big enough to make me stop reading, but it's driving me BONKERS.
You don't put a period between a line of dialogue and the attribution, unless the attribution is a new sentence. And you do not capitalize the start of the attribution line UNLESS it is a new sentence!
For example, this is correct:
"Hi, guys," John said.
"Where are we going?" said John wearily.
"Hey Teyla." John turned to smile at her.
"I just want to know where we are." Turning in a full circle, John couldn't see a recognizable landmark anywhere.
But this is wrong:
"Hi, guys." John said.
"Where are we going?" Said John.
"Hi, Teyla." Said Rodney cheerfully.
AAAUGH. (It hurt to even type those sentences on purpose.)
There are only a few writers (mostly new ones) who do it consistently throughout the story, so I know in most cases it's a typo -- a period for a comma, say -- or an accident. And I wouldn't be surprised if I've occasionally been guilty too. But it's cropping up EVERYWHERE lately and I just wanted to drop a quick note to be watchful for it when you're writing and beta'ing, because when I start stumbling across it in a story, it gets to the point where I'm not paying as much attention to the plot as I am to bracing myself for the next error, and you want the reader to be sucked into the story and not looking at the mechanical details, right?
You don't put a period between a line of dialogue and the attribution, unless the attribution is a new sentence. And you do not capitalize the start of the attribution line UNLESS it is a new sentence!
For example, this is correct:
"Hi, guys," John said.
"Where are we going?" said John wearily.
"Hey Teyla." John turned to smile at her.
"I just want to know where we are." Turning in a full circle, John couldn't see a recognizable landmark anywhere.
But this is wrong:
"Hi, guys." John said.
"Where are we going?" Said John.
"Hi, Teyla." Said Rodney cheerfully.
AAAUGH. (It hurt to even type those sentences on purpose.)
There are only a few writers (mostly new ones) who do it consistently throughout the story, so I know in most cases it's a typo -- a period for a comma, say -- or an accident. And I wouldn't be surprised if I've occasionally been guilty too. But it's cropping up EVERYWHERE lately and I just wanted to drop a quick note to be watchful for it when you're writing and beta'ing, because when I start stumbling across it in a story, it gets to the point where I'm not paying as much attention to the plot as I am to bracing myself for the next error, and you want the reader to be sucked into the story and not looking at the mechanical details, right?
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Do you know the book/series "Eats, shoots and leaves"? It's all about this kind of thing. Personally I prefer the radio version, because you can just hear how passionate the author is about these things, and it really gets to why it matters, and isn't just pedantry ;)
*shudder* Those examples are painful. Ouch.
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I actually mentioned this kind of mistake: "Hi, guys." John said. to a House writer once, who consistently wrote all her stories like that. She told me that that's how they wrote in Australia. I never checked it out, but I don't know, it could be true? I know that in Hebrew there are some punctuation differences from English that drive me crazy.
(Like, attributing speaking quotes "like this", instead of "like this," before commas sometimes. Gah.)
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(She's still recovering from the onslaught of its/it's confusion that turns up everywhere, including professionally published stuff...)
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*hopes never to offend the friendship goddess*
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Also (and I feel obnoxious and pushy whenever I say this sort of thing, so feel free to ignore me because I probably would) this is an excellent thing to link to/cross-post on
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Being a grammar whore is bad enough. But I also work for a newspaper. AP style is an antiquated writing style that drives me crazy. Sometimes, I find myself using that instead of the proper grammar.
Ugh.
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(Thanks, by the way, for not saying, Grammar Nazi. As you can imagine, THAT one makes my blood boil: one pseudo-comparison that should not be drawn.)
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Gah!
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I've actually started to wonder if that is how they do punctuation in some country. I know that we do it differently in Germany. Here it would be:
"Hi, guys", John said. (I *think*. I actually know English punctuation better than German.)
I learned that rather significant little difference in fandom, not in high school as one would expect.
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I find the abuse of exclamation points my own bigger pet peeve, though. If just about every sentence of dialogue ends with an exclamation point, then I stop reading. And don't get me started on elipses that are longer than three periods :P
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Curiously, I have a harder time remembering to correct this kind of error when I put it between dialogue. E.g. "All I'm saying," his eyes narrowed, "is that I'm not certain where we started from." I think it partly comes from the fact that I'm not sure how to punctuate the dialogue. To use ellipses seems to draw out the pause too long. How do you solve it?
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ETA: Oops, apologies for slipping a grammar peeve into a punctuation thread. You can see how much it bothers me. ;)
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The one that makes me want to start hurting people is not putting a comma between someone's name and the body of dialogue in direct address.
"Come with me John"
"I love you Rodney."
And there are so many writers who seem just not to know and do it EVERY GODDAMN TIME.
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