Please stop putting your words inside someone else's quotation marks

Seems this isn't the first go-round for you and the OP on the subject, SF? A quick search found this thread ...

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/72284/

And here's an interesting passage, especially the bold parts. I guess quotes weren't as sacred back then?

One thing I will say about the OP, though, is that after breezing through his other posts on this site, he's remarkably consistent in his holier-than-thou, there's-no-way-I'm wrong approach on virtually all subjects.

 

I'm sorry, BWIP, if I hurt your feelings. When did sports writers become so delicate?

Your defense of making up words and inserting them inside quotation marks was: What if the quote was "That was one of the craziest motherfuckers I've ever been a part of"?

The answer is, then it's not a quote. If that's all the kid says (a sentence that you can't publish, I presume), then you have to do more reporting, get him to say something better, talk to someone else, or don't use a quote.

I'm sorry you thought my reference to a bad photo was offensive to you. The situation is similar to not getting a photo that you can use. The solution is to choose a different photo, not to doctor the bad photo. Same with the quote.

Yes, it's a pet peeve. And not mine alone. At some shops, it's style never to do it. (Not that style isn't broken from time to time.) NYT Manual of Style has a good entry on this. It's one of the hallmarks of careful writing. Probably especially important in sportswriting, which is (overly) dependent on getting the good quote. Often we don't need a quote, but rookie sportswriters (and some older ones) seem to think the entire exercise of journalism is the collection of quotes, so they're willing to trample on one just to say they have one. Stories often would be better without the bad quote.

Bob Ryan teaches a good lesson about setting up a quote well, building up to it, and framing it so he doesn't have to step on it with clumsy parentheses or brackets. He's one of the best at this. Heard him give a good talk about it at APSE.

 

Burbs,

It's not really an apology if you apologize then criticize the person for being offended.

Maybe you should pay attention to the words outside of quotes and parentheses so you can see how you might come across.

 

Thanks, Ace, for the advice.

I told BWIP that it was like the photo situation. His response was that I was a prick. He's probably right about that. But how convenient: If he doesn't like my tone, then he doesn't have to address the point under discussion. It's called changing the subject.

Anyway, thanks again.

 

Didn't offend me at all - like I said, it was just obvious by the photo reference that you're more interested in being an insufferable prick who can't fathom the possibility that others don't share your opinion than having a rational discussion. And like it or not, it is your opinion, not a fact you can try to dictate to everyone else.

If quotes are indeed so sacred, how do you reconcile that with your earlier post about being fine taking out things like "um, uh" and stuff like that?

 

If you want to come across as a prick, that's fine. It's an art form and kind of funny.

But it's hard to win people to your side when they see red.

And I pretty much agree with you on quotes.

 

Yes, but the point IS whether he's right or wrong on the quotes. It's not whether he's offended us.

If style points were the bottom line, I'd be bloody in a ditch like the guy who didn't choose DirecTV.

 

I think he's right on the quotes. The parenthetical inserts always stop me as a reader, and they are usually obvious and unnecessary.

But I recognize that I may be in the minority on the issue.

 

I agree that parenthesis in quotes bog down a sentence.

But I can't count the number of times I've changed a quote to make it more readable. The meaning of a quote is far more sacred than the actual quote itself.

Example: "That was one of the craziest ones I've ever seen." = "That was one of the craziest innings I've ever seen."

If, in fact, "ones" = "innings" to the person who said it, I have no problem presenting it that way in a story.

 

You also could set up the quote to make it clear he was talking about that inning.

But if you do make a change/deletion/insertion like that in a quote, you better make damn sure that's what the person meant.

 

Fair point. I just think it's more of a preference/style question than the absolute that it was presented to be.

And I believe whichever side you are on, when you act like you're telling a 5 year old that it is spelled "the" and not "thuh," your message loses weight and gets shouted down by the method of arguing. But like you said, that's not the issue.

 

I tend to disagree with the original post of this thread. That's just me.

But ...

Considering the state of sports journalism, it seems like an trivial thing to argue about. Don't we have bigger fish to fry?

We've got young kids coming out of college thinking that good writing is an opinion with Sports Center lingo thrown in. We've got older guys (and gals) who are reluctant to change with the times and present our product in a different format. We've got publishers who wants us to do more with less. And we're all terrified that tomorrow we might lose our jobs.

Bickering about things like this is akin to suggesting America is going down the shitter because the stop signs are too small.