A column on writing from Editor & Publisher October 31, 1981.

Out Of Their Mouths, Parenthetically

Last of three columns on how to quote people; see #17, Shifty Tenses, #18, Shifting the Time and Place.

Writers have four different ways to attribute what people and reports have said, the most common being direct and indirect speech. But the easiest is a newspaper style called parenthetical speech, or parenthetical attribution.

The attribution is X announced..., or ...said Y. It appears parenthetically in the middle or the end of the sentence. It needs no quotes but must be set off by commas.

NO: In 1984 Herb N. Sprawl said this city will rise again.

OK: In 1984, Herb N. Sprawl said, this city will rise again.

Which speech style should you choose? Copy editors and readers almost always prefer direct speech:

"In 1984 this city will rise again," said Herb N. Sprawl, city architect, to the common council.

But maybe you didn't quite catch Sprawl's pithy cliche, so you don't dare put anything inside quotes. Yet you know you have the gist of his remarks, so you think of using indirect speech. Attribution must come at the beginning of what was said:

At the razing of Cynn Sity yesterday, Herb N. Sprawl said that the city would rise again in a 1984.

Indirect speech, however, is governed by strict grammatical rules. Often many words must be changed (this city shifts to the city, will rise to would rise.) See Columns #17, Shifty tenses, and #18, Shifting time and place.

The way out is parenthetical attribution, which must not come at the beginning or the strict rules of indirect speech apply. Pronouns shift, but no verb sequencing is needed.

DIRECT: Herb N. Sprawl said, "I will rebuild Cynn City."

INDIRECT: Herb N. Sprawl said that he would rebuild Cynn City.

PARENTHETICAL: He will rebuild Cynn City, Sprawl said.

Parenthetical speech has another advantage over indirect speech. Note the merit, below, of telling the news first and clearly, then giving it credibility by naming the source:

The Moral majority claims it registered 4 million new voters last year, but public awareness of the widely publicized group is extremely low, the Princeton Religion Research Center said Friday.

If this had been written in indirect speech, not only would the verbs shift, but the source would come first, not the news. The Princeton Religon Research Center said Friday that although the Moral Majority claimed....

Attribution first is usually worth doing only when the source is likely to be as enthralling to the reader as anything that might be said. Henry Kissinger said yesterday that....

There have been days in newspaperland when Kissinger or Jacqueline Kennedy Onnasis need proclaim only that milk comes from cows for us to print the good news and our readers to lap it up.

One other speech style works grammatically the same as parenthetical attribution: The tenses are the same as those used by the source, but the pronouns change. Attribution, however, may come at the beginning or the end.

ACCORDING TO: According to Herb N. Sprawl, Cynn City will be renamed Happy Hollow.

Problem: For many editors, according to" has the effect of a disclaimer...tends to give editorial slant." (Joe Cotton, Springfield Mass. Republican) For other editors," It carries no connotation of doubt or suspicion. But don't overdo it." (John B. Bremner)

(Ed. Note 2009: For e-mailing, these niceties are often ignored. "I heard that Sarah Palin says she's running for president in 2012."

Ethel Grodzins Romm is a writer and editor currently living in New York City. She is the author of The Open Conspiracy: What America's Angry Generation is Saying (review) (auction with cover), several of the Strategies in Reading workbook series and others. She appeared in the film Paranormal: Science or Pseudoscience? She has written columns on language for Editor & Publisher, The American Bar Association Journal and many others. She is currently working on a book on management.