When you are supplying attribution to a direct quote, it's best to follow two simple patterns.
The first: If the attribution is a name only, put said after the name. "Said suffices," John McIntyre said.
The second: If the name is paired with an explanatory phrase, put said before the name. "Don't go all Tom Swifty on me," said John McIntyre, the author of The Old Editor Says.
The reason for this is that a flat-footed said coming at the end of the phrase looks anticlimactic.
And, as always, keep mind that in nearly all cases, said does suffice. Resist the temptation to aver, affirm, asseverate, avow, declare, disclose, divulge, drawl, exclaim, expatiate, gasp, impart, intone, maintain, mumble, murmur, mutter, note, observe, opine, profess, quip,* recount, relate, remark, retort, reveal,** snap, sniff, snivel, snort, splutter, state, titter, wheeze, whine, or whisper.
*I was on a desk that performed a quip search on every story a particular reporter filed, it being her impression that quipped could be substituted for said in all instances, and so she did.
**I worked with another writer who regularly wrote revealed for the most obvious and mundane statements.
Bravo. One of my pet peeves.
ReplyDeleteWhen I learned how to write a press release, three rules stood out: use “said” (or “added” in a second quote); put the attribution at the end of the first sentence; and put the facts in the text and any opinions in the quotes.
ReplyDeleteYou have made my day!
ReplyDeleteYou may remember Language Log ridiculing The New Yorker for their apparent inability to put "said" before a name. Geoff Pullum's 2010 post, Still no subject postposing at The New Yorker, cites some amazingly bad examples, such as:
ReplyDelete"Galleries and magazines send him things, and he doesn't even open them," Zhao Zhao, a younger artist who works as one of Ai's assistants, said.
"He used to have this great, dignified passion to him," Christopher Hitchens, who, until his own political change of heart, defended Chomsky, says.
so straightforward! And thus, trustworthy ...
ReplyDelete“For he himself has said it,
ReplyDeleteAnd it's greatly to his credit,
That he is an Englishman!”
—Gilbert & Sullivan, “HMS Pinafore”
I work with fiction writing and am always on the alert for “sighs/sighed” as a dialogue tag.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of some of the headlines I see online that have me ready to scream:
ReplyDelete[Celebrity] Breaks His Silence ...
[Celebrity] Opens Up About ...