Q. In fiction, when a character’s entire dialogue is quoted material or a quoted title of a work, do I need to use both double and single quotation marks around the dialogue? Thanks!
A. We would recommend using use both sets of marks. For example,
“What did Bartleby say?” he asked.
“ ‘I would prefer not to,’ ” I replied.
“What’s that from?” he asked.
“ ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener,’ ” I replied. “It’s a famous story.”
In the second line of dialogue, the nested single quotation marks remind readers that the first-person narrator of “I replied” isn’t the same person as the “I” in quotation marks; rather, those are Bartleby’s words. In the fourth line, the nested quotation marks are somewhat less important, but consider that if “Bartleby” were a novel instead of a story, the title would be in italics; the single quotation marks play a similar role. See also CMOS 6.11.
Q. When a character in a novel or story is speaking and pauses or falters between two sentences, and that pause is indicated with an ellipsis, is it correct or incorrect to add a period after the first sentence?
A. In fiction the convention is to limit ellipses to three dots—whether the ellipsis follows a complete sentence or not, and whether the ellipsis indicates a faltering or trailing off or a more definite pause. This convention applies equally to dialogue and narration. Following the ellipsis, you can use a capital letter to indicate the start of a new sentence, especially to signal a definite shift (as in the fourth example):
“Will . . . will you help me?” It took all his courage to ask.
“Don’t try to help me . . . just don’t.” Dylan wouldn’t even look at us.
“Don’t try to help me . . . you wouldn’t understand.”
We had so many adventures . . . It’s sad that they’re now done.
Though a sentence-ending period isn’t retained with an ellipsis, a question mark or an exclamation point is. The placement of these marks relative to the ellipsis will depend on context and emphasis:
“Stop! . . . Stop, I tell you!” The chase was on.
“So you’re married . . . !” He waited in vain for his friend to deny it.
“So you’re married . . . ?” The question hung in the air.
For some additional considerations, see “Prose, Interrupted: Signaling Breaks in Dialogue,” at CMOS Shop Talk. For the use of ellipses to indicate omissions, in which case a period is usually retained before an ellipsis at the end of a sentence, see CMOS 13.50–58.
Q. When breaking dialogue with narration (where the verb used is not describing speaking), how should the punctuation appear? “Yes, this is fine,” she stood up. “Please go ahead.” Or should it be: “Yes, this is fine.” She stood up. “Please go ahead.” What if it were “nodded” instead of “stood up”? What about in: “Look,” she pointed to the road, “a blue car.” Do we need to add “said” (or similar verbs) here? Thanks for your time.
A. We’ve seen questions like this before. They usually come down to one thing: Can a person do something other than speak or write their words or communicate them using a signed language? In other words, can you smile the word hello or nod to someone in English? If you agree that people do not literally stand or nod or point—or smile—their words, structure your dialogue accordingly:
“Yes, this is fine,” she said, standing up. “Please go ahead.”
or
“Yes, this is fine.” She stood up. “Please go ahead.”
Nodding, however, comes closer to speech than standing does, and some editors would allow a construction like this one:
“Yes, this is fine,” she nodded. “Please go ahead.”
This leeway might be extended to smiling and shrugging and similar gestures that play a supporting role for many people when they talk. Pointing is also a gesture, but many editors would draw the line before allowing that verb as a dialogue tag. Instead, they’d edit your example to maintain a distinction between speaking and pointing:
“Look,” she said, pointing to the road, “a blue car.”
or
“Look.” She pointed to the road. “A blue car.”
or
“Look”—she pointed to the road—“a blue car.”
Opinions vary. Editors can help by asking an author first before making wholesale changes.
Q. How would it be best to punctuate spoken dialogue when a word is repeated to change or clarify meaning? For example: I “like” like you. (Alternatively: I like-like you.) Meaning: I am romantically attracted to you.
A. You are referring to the phenomenon known as contrastive focus reduplication (or simply contrastive reduplication), a term coined by Jila Ghomeshi, Ray Jackendoff, Nicole Rosen, and Kevin Russell; see “Contrastive Focus Reduplication in English (The Salad-Salad Paper),” Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 22 (2004): 307–57.
Ghomeshi et al.’s paper describes the effect of this repetition as “denoting the prototypical instance of the reduplicated lexical expression” (p. 308). In other words, it’s like adding “really” or “real” before the repeated verb or noun: I don’t just like you, I really like you. To illustrate the phenomenon, the text of Ghomeshi et al.’s paper uses an en dash between repeated words and, for repeated phrases, hyphens in addition to the en dash; to show the emphasis typical of such expressions, the first term is in all caps:
I’ll make the tuna salad, and you make the SALAD–salad.
Oh, we’re not LIVING-TOGETHER–living-together. (p. 308)
CMOS does not yet weigh in on this phenomenon, but we would probably say that in ordinary prose the dashes and hyphens are unnecessary. The capital letters provide a helpful cue, but italics, which are a little less emphatic, would be more appropriate in most situations. Here’s what that would look like:
I don’t simply like you, I like you like you.
Your idea of using quotation marks for the first term is a good one, especially when italics are not an option and when ALL CAPS or SMALL CAPS would feel like too much. But quotation marks might be read as scare quotes, making them more appropriate for irony than for emphasis.
In sum, Ghomeshi et al.’s approach works well in an academic paper on contrastive reduplication. But in a novel or a story or an ordinary piece of journalism, italics alone should suffice. Anything more than that would be overkill—as in, like, overkill overkill.
Q. Does CMOS have a recommendation on how to present conversations taking place via text messages in fiction writing?
Q. I frequently quote material that includes existing footnotes within it. If I don’t want to include the footnote in my own writing, can I insert [footnote omitted] in superscript in place of the footnote number to the original text?
A. The note number can simply be deleted. It adds no meaningful content and risks leading the reader on a wild goose chase for a note in your own text that doesn’t exist. Nor is it helpful to readers to know that you’ve deleted the number; such numbers are a distraction even in the original text, and many books are published without note reference numbers for that very reason (notes are instead listed at the end of the book by page number and key phrase in the text). If, on the other hand, you also want to include the text of the note, use a block quotation, preserve the note number, and present the numbered note below the quotation, preferably in a smaller font size. See CMOS 13.7 for more, including how to handle parenthetical text references.
Q. Are “ius gentium” and “jus gentium” equally correct, assuming I’m consistent throughout my essay? I’m used to using “jus,” but many of the sources I’m consulting use “ius”; if I quote a passage with this word, may I simply anglicize it to “jus” without comment?
A. The spellings “ius gentium” and “jus gentium” are equally correct, though we, too, would prefer the anglicized form (to follow Merriam-Webster, not to mention the OED and other standard English-language dictionaries). But do not change “ius” to “jus” in direct quotations; readers wishing to follow your work might be confused by such a change (or, worse, prevented from finding the term). At most, provide a parenthetical gloss at first mention:
jus gentium (or ius gentium)
If the first mention is within a quotation, use square brackets:
ius gentium [jus gentium]
Q. In dialogue, do you spell out social titles? For example, “Mister Lewis, please come to the table.” If so, what should we do with “Ms.”? This is a different word from “Miss,” so that isn’t a totally accurate spelling. Obviously “Ms.” (pronounced “miz”) implies that marital status is unknown, while “Miss” suggests being single. Should the dialogue just be “Ms. Smith” throughout, or “Miss Smith” even though the author means “Ms.”?
A. The fact that dialogue is spoken doesn’t mean everything has to be spelled out for the reader. Use this two-part test: Is the word normally abbreviated? And if the dialogue occurred in a dramatic work, would an actor know how to speak the line? Social titles are pretty much always abbreviated before a name, and “Ms.” is pronounced “miz”—as any reader should know. So write “Ms. Smith.”
Q. When a word beginning with an uppercase letter, either because it begins the sentence or because it’s a proper noun, is stammered/stuttered, should the second and following instances of the letter also be uppercase? I’m looking at “P-peter,” which looks really strange to me, and I would write it “P-Peter,” but I can’t find any examples in CMOS.
A. “P-Peter” is the logical choice. By capitalizing the second “P,” you are unambiguously signaling repetition of the first letter as such. Additional letters would also be capitalized: “P-P-Peter.” If the word would normally be lowercased, a capital letter still makes sense at the beginning of a sentence—“P-Please, p-please . . .”—though some authors will prefer lowercase. Choose one approach and apply it consistently.
Q. When presenting a Q&A with a note like “This interview has been edited for length and clarity,” how much can you edit the interview? Should you still use ellipses and brackets, or does that note mean these devices aren’t needed?
A. Such a note gets you off the ellipses-and-brackets hook. As for how much to edit, don’t do anything that might distort the interviewee’s intended meaning. If possible, share a final draft of the interview with the interviewee prior to publication. Interviews written and edited in collaboration with the interviewee usually won’t require any kind of editorial note. A previously published interview, on the other hand, is treated like any previously published source: omissions or clarifications would need to be signaled in the text with ellipses or brackets or explained in a note. For more advice, see CMOS 13.48.