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Gerald Smyth
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 6:01 am
Post subject: Spee chactsin prose |
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In prose, should or should not each speech-act be marked by a new paragraph?...g
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Skitt
Guest
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Will
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:03 pm
Post subject: Re: Spee chactsin prose |
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geraldsmyth1@yahoo.com (Gerald Smyth) wrote in message news:<6bf07756.0411161826.18d99c00@posting.google.com>...
| Quote: | In prose, should or should not each speech-act be marked by a new paragraph?...g
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In my opinion, yes.
Will.
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Lars Eighner
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:03 pm
Post subject: Re: Spee chactsin prose |
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In our last episode,
<6bf07756.0411161826.18d99c00@posting.google.com>, the lovely and
talented Gerald Smyth broadcast on alt.usage.english:
| Quote: | In prose, should or should not each speech-act be marked by a new
paragraph?...g
|
Not necessarily. The important thing is not to mix speakers-actors
in the same paragraph. If there is action in a paragraph with speech(es)
the speaker and the one who act must be the same.
--
Lars Eighner -finger for geek code- eighner@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
"The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no
standard by which to judge it." --Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person |
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Paul Wolff
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 1:34 am
Post subject: Re: Spee chactsin prose |
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In message <slrncpmagl.27ju.eighner@goodwill.io.com>, Lars Eighner
<eighner@io.com> writes
| Quote: | In our last episode,
6bf07756.0411161826.18d99c00@posting.google.com>, the lovely and
talented Gerald Smyth broadcast on alt.usage.english:
In prose, should or should not each speech-act be marked by a new
paragraph?...g
Not necessarily. The important thing is not to mix speakers-actors
in the same paragraph. If there is action in a paragraph with speech(es)
the speaker and the one who act must be the same.
When I was about 11 years old, having noticed that when, in novels, a |
character made a long speech that extended into a second paragraph, the
new paragraph was given an initial quotation mark (double inverted
commas, as ") without the previous paragraph having been closed in this
way, I marked successive speech paragraphs in the same way in my
schoolwork. I was very annoyed to be severely criticised for it.
I could see that it would remind the reader that the speech was
continuing. Is there any good reason for its being correct in print but
not in manuscript? Teecher didn't offer any explanation for this
publishers' practice that I now remember.
--
Paul
In bocca al Lupo! |
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Gerald Smyth
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 1:34 am
Post subject: Re: Spee chactsin prose |
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|
"Skitt" <skitt99@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<2vvs4rF2pld6dU1@uni-berlin.de>...
I'm not sure myself. I think I would include everything in the link
you found; any utterance, any vocalization, even directly quoted
thoughts. Maybe 'speech-act' is not the right word.
To what extent a person's flow can be interrupted and still considered
a single speech-act I don't know.
| Quote: | How does a speaker *mark* paragraphs? By using one of the Victor Borge
noise inventions?
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How does a *speaker* mark *paragraphs*? I thought we were talking
about a writer's marking speech-acts....g |
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Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:04 am
Post subject: Re: Spee chactsin prose |
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Gerald Smyth wrote:
| Quote: | "Skitt" wrote:
Gerald Smyth wrote:
In prose, should or should not each speech-act be marked by a new
paragraph?...g
That would depend on the meaning of the term "speech-act".
http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsASpeechAct.htm
I'm not sure myself. I think I would include everything in the link
you found; any utterance, any vocalization, even directly quoted
thoughts. Maybe 'speech-act' is not the right word.
|
Probably not for what you want to know.
| Quote: | To what extent a person's flow can be interrupted and still considered
a single speech-act I don't know.
How does a speaker *mark* paragraphs? By using one of the Victor
Borge noise inventions?
How does a *speaker* mark *paragraphs*? I thought we were talking
about a writer's marking speech-acts....g
|
A writer does not have speech-acts, only a speaker does. Didn't you read
the stuff at the URL I gave? That's why I wrote what I did. The rest of
your question, were we, against definition, to extend the term "speech-act"
to written material, would include things like single-word or
single-sentence "write-acts" (it there is such a concept), resulting in
paragraphs not likely to be recommendable, so the answer to your question is
still "it depends". Why are you asking?
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:04 am
Post subject: Re: Spee chactsin prose |
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|
Paul Wolff wrote:
| Quote: | In message <slrncpmagl.27ju.eighner@goodwill.io.com>, Lars Eighner
eighner@io.com> writes
In our last episode,
6bf07756.0411161826.18d99c00@posting.google.com>, the lovely and
talented Gerald Smyth broadcast on alt.usage.english:
In prose, should or should not each speech-act be marked by a new
paragraph?...g
Not necessarily. The important thing is not to mix
speakers-actors
in the same paragraph. If there is action in a paragraph with
speech(es) the speaker and the one who act must be the same.
When I was about 11 years old, having noticed that when, in novels,
a
character made a long speech that extended into a second paragraph,
the new paragraph was given an initial quotation mark (double
inverted
commas, as ") without the previous paragraph having been closed in
this way, I marked successive speech paragraphs in the same way in
my
schoolwork. I was very annoyed to be severely criticised for it.
I could see that it would remind the reader that the speech was
continuing. Is there any good reason for its being correct in
print
but not in manuscript? Teecher didn't offer any explanation for
this
publishers' practice that I now remember.
|
Sir was rong. Can't, surely, have been my beloved Colonel Smart?
Mike. |
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Gerald Smyth
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:01 pm
Post subject: Re: Spee chactsin prose |
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|
"Skitt" <skitt99@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<302a24F2qisjnU1@uni-berlin.de>...
| Quote: | Gerald Smyth wrote:
"Skitt" wrote:
Gerald Smyth wrote:
In prose, should or should not each speech-act be marked by a new
paragraph?...g
That would depend on the meaning of the term "speech-act".
http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsASpeechAct.htm
I'm not sure myself. I think I would include everything in the link
you found; any utterance, any vocalization, even directly quoted
thoughts. Maybe 'speech-act' is not the right word.
Probably not for what you want to know.
To what extent a person's flow can be interrupted and still considered
a single speech-act I don't know.
How does a speaker *mark* paragraphs? By using one of the Victor
Borge noise inventions?
How does a *speaker* mark *paragraphs*? I thought we were talking
about a writer's marking speech-acts....g
A writer does not have speech-acts, only a speaker does. Didn't you read
the stuff at the URL I gave? That's why I wrote what I did. The rest of
your question, were we, against definition, to extend the term "speech-act"
to written material, would include things like single-word or
single-sentence "write-acts" (it there is such a concept), resulting in
paragraphs not likely to be recommendable, so the answer to your question is
still "it depends".
|
A writer represents the speech-acts on paper... I was taking that as
read...
| Quote: | Why are you asking?
|
ONE day when Zi Lu was walking in town he met a few of his former
companions. Though not quite villains, they were licentious vagabonds,
and none too scrupulous. Zi Lu stopped for a while to talk to them.
One of them looked Zi Lu's attire up and down and said: 全o this is
the scholarly garb. It's a pretty shabby outfit'. He also said: 船on't
you miss your longsword?'. Receiving no response, he then came out
with something Zi Lu could not ignore: 選sn't that teacher Kong Qiu a
bit of a hypocrite? When he puts on a solemn face and expounds things
he doesn't believe as if they were true, he really looks as if he
could make a good thing out of it'.
ONE day when Zi Lu was walking in town he met a few of his former
companions. Though not quite villains, they were licentious vagabonds,
and none too scrupulous. Zi Lu stopped for a while to talk to them.
One of them looked Zi Lu's attire up and down and said:
全o this is the scholarly garb. It's a pretty shabby outfit.'
He also said:
船on't you miss your longsword?'
Receiving no response, he then came out with something Zi Lu
could not ignore:
選sn't that teacher Kong Qiu a bit of a hypocrite? When he puts
on a solemn face and expounds things he doesn't believe as if they
were true, he really looks as if he could make a good thing out of
it.'
....g |
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Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2004 12:01 am
Post subject: Re: Spee chactsin prose |
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Gerald Smyth wrote:
| Quote: | "Skitt" wrote:
Gerald Smyth wrote:
"Skitt" wrote:
Gerald Smyth wrote:
In prose, should or should not each speech-act be marked by a new
paragraph?...g
That would depend on the meaning of the term "speech-act".
http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsASpeechAct.htm
I'm not sure myself. I think I would include everything in the link
you found; any utterance, any vocalization, even directly quoted
thoughts. Maybe 'speech-act' is not the right word.
Probably not for what you want to know.
To what extent a person's flow can be interrupted and still
considered a single speech-act I don't know.
How does a speaker *mark* paragraphs? By using one of the Victor
Borge noise inventions?
How does a *speaker* mark *paragraphs*? I thought we were talking
about a writer's marking speech-acts....g
A writer does not have speech-acts, only a speaker does. Didn't you
read the stuff at the URL I gave? That's why I wrote what I did.
The rest of your question, were we, against definition, to extend
the term "speech-act" to written material, would include things like
single-word or single-sentence "write-acts" (it there is such a
concept), resulting in paragraphs not likely to be recommendable, so
the answer to your question is still "it depends".
A writer represents the speech-acts on paper... I was taking that as
read...
Why are you asking?
ONE day when Zi Lu was walking in town he met a few of his former
companions. Though not quite villains, they were licentious vagabonds,
and none too scrupulous. Zi Lu stopped for a while to talk to them.
One of them looked Zi Lu's attire up and down and said: 'So this is
the scholarly garb. It's a pretty shabby outfit'. He also said: 'Don't
you miss your longsword?'. Receiving no response, he then came out
with something Zi Lu could not ignore: 'Isn't that teacher Kong Qiu a
bit of a hypocrite? When he puts on a solemn face and expounds things
he doesn't believe as if they were true, he really looks as if he
could make a good thing out of it'.
ONE day when Zi Lu was walking in town he met a few of his former
companions. Though not quite villains, they were licentious vagabonds,
and none too scrupulous. Zi Lu stopped for a while to talk to them.
One of them looked Zi Lu's attire up and down and said:
'So this is the scholarly garb. It's a pretty shabby outfit.'
He also said:
'Don't you miss your longsword?'
Receiving no response, he then came out with something Zi Lu
could not ignore:
'Isn't that teacher Kong Qiu a bit of a hypocrite? When he puts
on a solemn face and expounds things he doesn't believe as if they
were true, he really looks as if he could make a good thing out of
it.'
|
I now see what you want to know. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer. I
don't even know who would decide on things like that. What threw me was
your use of "speech-act", not that it was totally wrong. It was just the
way you put your question that misled me. You shouldn't have asked about
paragraphs, but rather about the format for representing quoted speech.
Generally, that is done by separating it in paragraphs (similar to the way
you show it above) for each speaker. See
http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/quotation.htm
A brief example from there is as follows:
=========
Convention normally insists that a new paragraph begins with each change of
speaker:
"I don't care what you think anymore," she said, jauntily
tossing back her hair and looking askance at Edward.
"What do you mean?" he replied.
"What do you mean, 'What do I mean?'" Alberta sniffed. She
was becoming impatient and wished that she were elsewhere.
"You know darn well what I mean!" Edward huffed.
"Have it your way," Alberta added, "if that's how you feel."
==========
The above is not a perfect representation of their example, as none of the
representations of each speaker's turns took more than a single line in the
original.
Someone else in this group might be better equipped to provide a good answer
to your question.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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Athel Cornish-Bowden
Guest
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2004 6:02 pm
Post subject: Re: Spee chactsin prose |
|
|
Paul Wolff <bounceme@two.wolff.co.uk> wrote in message news:<t4HMS5Su59mBFw4J@fpwolff.demon.co.uk>...
[ ... ]
| Quote: | When I was about 11 years old, having noticed that when, in novels, a
character made a long speech that extended into a second paragraph, the
new paragraph was given an initial quotation mark (double inverted
commas, as ") without the previous paragraph having been closed in this
way, I marked successive speech paragraphs in the same way in my
schoolwork. I was very annoyed to be severely criticised for it.
I could see that it would remind the reader that the speech was
continuing. Is there any good reason for its being correct in print but
not in manuscript? Teecher didn't offer any explanation for this
publishers' practice that I now remember.
|
I thought that was still standard practice, but rarely needed because
most speeches in novels don't extend to multiple paragraphs.
Does anyone have a copy of The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged (Ayn
Rand) handy? I forget which of the two it was, as I read them about
30 years ago, but as I recall one of them has a single speech that
goes on for about one third of the whole (very long) book. It would be
interesting to check how she (or her publisher) handled the multiple
paragraphs to make it clear that the speech was continuing through
several chapters. If I want to quote something at length I normally
inset the quoted material and don't use quotation marks at all, but if
I were to use quotation marks I would certainly repeat the opening
quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph and only put
closing quotation marks at the end.
I wrote the last paragraph before checking what the style guides have
to say, but in fact the Oxford Style Manual (p. 152) and the Chicago
Manual of Style (pp. 450-455) agree that the style described by Paul
is correct, and the Chicago Manual says that for long quotations it is
best to indent and eschew quotation marks. Like Paul's teecher they
don't explain the rationale. Probably they think it is common sense.
In the case of Ayn Rand's book indenting wouldn't really work, because
if you opened the book at page 837 it wouldn't be too obvious whether
a statement that started on page 582 was still continuing, or whether
the book was designed with rather a wide left-hand margin.
athel
--
Athel Cornish-Bowden
athel@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr
http://bip.cnrs-mrs.fr/bip10/homepage.htm |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2004 6:03 pm
Post subject: Re: Spee chactsin prose |
|
|
Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
| Quote: | Paul Wolff <bounceme@two.wolff.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<t4HMS5Su59mBFw4J@fpwolff.demon.co.uk>...
[ ... ]
When I was about 11 years old, having noticed that when, in
novels, a
character made a long speech that extended into a second
paragraph,
the new paragraph was given an initial quotation mark (double
inverted commas, as ") without the previous paragraph having been
closed in this way, I marked successive speech paragraphs in the
same way in my schoolwork. I was very annoyed to be severely
criticised for it.
I could see that it would remind the reader that the speech was
continuing. Is there any good reason for its being correct in
print
but not in manuscript? Teecher didn't offer any explanation for
this
publishers' practice that I now remember.
I thought that was still standard practice, but rarely needed
because
most speeches in novels don't extend to multiple paragraphs.
Does anyone have a copy of The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged (Ayn
Rand) handy? I forget which of the two it was, as I read them
about
30 years ago, but as I recall one of them has a single speech that
goes on for about one third of the whole (very long) book. It would
be
interesting to check how she (or her publisher) handled the
multiple
paragraphs to make it clear that the speech was continuing through
several chapters. If I want to quote something at length I normally
inset the quoted material and don't use quotation marks at all, but
if
I were to use quotation marks I would certainly repeat the opening
quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph and only put
closing quotation marks at the end.
I wrote the last paragraph before checking what the style guides
have
to say, but in fact the Oxford Style Manual (p. 152) and the
Chicago
Manual of Style (pp. 450-455) agree that the style described by
Paul
is correct, and the Chicago Manual says that for long quotations it
is
best to indent and eschew quotation marks. Like Paul's teecher they
don't explain the rationale. Probably they think it is common
sense.
In the case of Ayn Rand's book indenting wouldn't really work,
because
if you opened the book at page 837 it wouldn't be too obvious
whether
a statement that started on page 582 was still continuing, or
whether
the book was designed with rather a wide left-hand margin.
(Sorry not to have found a courteous way of snipping.) |
But aren't "quotations" different from "speech" in style-guide terms?
The indented style is for quotations from other texts, rather than
for speech in one's own text. (Have I missed something in the
discussion?)
Mike. |
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Donna Richoux
Guest
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 20, 2004 6:01 pm
Post subject: the speech in Atlas Shrugged [WAS: Spee chactsin prose] |
|
|
Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> wrote:
| Quote: | Paul Wolff <bounceme@two.wolff.co.uk> wrote
[ ... ]
When I was about 11 years old, having noticed that when, in novels, a
character made a long speech that extended into a second paragraph, the
new paragraph was given an initial quotation mark (double inverted
commas, as ") without the previous paragraph having been closed in this
way, I marked successive speech paragraphs in the same way in my
schoolwork. I was very annoyed to be severely criticised for it.
I could see that it would remind the reader that the speech was
continuing. Is there any good reason for its being correct in print but
not in manuscript? Teecher didn't offer any explanation for this
publishers' practice that I now remember.
I thought that was still standard practice, but rarely needed because
most speeches in novels don't extend to multiple paragraphs.
Does anyone have a copy of The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged (Ayn
Rand) handy?
|
Yes. Ah, yes, indeed, the monumental speech in Atlas Shrugged. A
mysterious character seizes control of the TV broadcasting system and
begins a speech on Page 936, which continues uninterrupted, until Page
993.
993 minus 936 equals 57.
Total pages in book (paperback), 1084.
57/1084 = 5%
I would have guessed it went on for over a hundred pages, myself, so
both our memories exaggerated. However, it was such an outrageous,
clunky, unforgivable betrayal of the reader's expectations -- this was
a climactic moment of the plot! -- I don't think any jury would convict
us of slander.
The closest thing to that I can remember were those boring philosophy
lectures in _Sophie's World_, but that was worse because they were stuck
into a completely inane, meandering non-plot. (Sorry, sorry to all of
you who loved Sophie and learned a lot -- I'm glad it worked for you.)
At least _Atlas Shrugged_ was full of drama. Except when it stood still
for fifty-seven pages.
I never calculated how long it would take to read a speech like that out
loud. It looks like about 12 words per line, 50 lines per page... How
long would it take to read 30,000 words out loud, roughly? Is a rate of
100 words/min reasonable? 300 min would be 5 hours -- my gosh, the
country could actually maybe truly *have* been transfixed for that long
without sending out for pizza. At least it's not fifty hours or five
hundred or something.
| Quote: | I forget which of the two it was, as I read them about
30 years ago, but as I recall one of them has a single speech that
goes on for about one third of the whole (very long) book. It would be
interesting to check how she (or her publisher) handled the multiple
paragraphs to make it clear that the speech was continuing through
several chapters.
|
All one chapter. Conventional punctuation: double quote at start of each
paragraph, no close quote at end of any paragraph until page 993.
| Quote: | If I want to quote something at length I normally
inset the quoted material and don't use quotation marks at all, but if
I were to use quotation marks I would certainly repeat the opening
quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph and only put
closing quotation marks at the end.
I wrote the last paragraph before checking what the style guides have
to say, but in fact the Oxford Style Manual (p. 152) and the Chicago
Manual of Style (pp. 450-455) agree that the style described by Paul
is correct, and the Chicago Manual says that for long quotations it is
best to indent and eschew quotation marks. Like Paul's teecher they
don't explain the rationale. Probably they think it is common sense.
In the case of Ayn Rand's book indenting wouldn't really work, because
if you opened the book at page 837 it wouldn't be too obvious whether
a statement that started on page 582 was still continuing, or whether
the book was designed with rather a wide left-hand margin.
|
--
Best -- Donna Richoux |
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rzed
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 12:00 am
Post subject: Re: the speech in Atlas Shrugged [WAS: Spee chactsin prose] |
|
|
trio@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote in
news:1gnk5oq.1kx1k3djop5ozN%trio@euronet.nl:
[...]
| Quote: | Yes. Ah, yes, indeed, the monumental speech in Atlas Shrugged. A
mysterious character seizes control of the TV broadcasting
system and begins a speech on Page 936, which continues
uninterrupted, until Page 993.
|
One of the high points of literature, indeed. It's no wonder people
everywhere were asking "Who is <mysterious character>"? There would
probably have been T-shirts in a later era. Ayn Rand missed out by
being ahead of her time.
| Quote: |
993 minus 936 equals 57.
Total pages in book (paperback), 1084.
57/1084 = 5%
I would have guessed it went on for over a hundred pages,
myself, so both our memories exaggerated. However, it was such
an outrageous, clunky, unforgivable betrayal of the reader's
expectations -- this was a climactic moment of the plot! -- I
don't think any jury would convict us of slander.
|
I wonder if you can find statistics about the number of people who
read the entire speech compared to the number who claimed to have
read the book? It would be a vanishingly small percentage, I
suspect. There were, it is said, 5,000,000+ copies sold.
[...]
--
rzed |
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Bob Cunningham
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 12:01 am
Post subject: Re: the speech in Atlas Shrugged [WAS: Spee chactsin prose] |
|
|
On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 22:48:19 GMT, rzed <jello@comics.com>
said:
[about _Atlas Shrugged_]
| Quote: | I wonder if you can find statistics about the number of people who
read the entire speech compared to the number who claimed to have
read the book? It would be a vanishingly small percentage, I
suspect. There were, it is said, 5,000,000+ copies sold.
|
I picked up a used copy at a book sale a couple of years ago
and read every word. I wish I had found something better to
do. |
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