Question about quotation marks

[Mark Hoffmann]

for Jo or anyone who knows the answer.

I'm reading Jo's A Bleeding of Innocents - which is excellent BTW - and noticed a format thing I've not seen before and wondered about it.

Where there's a long piece of dialogue and it is broken into paragraphs, the new indented para starts with a quotation mark. Like this:

blah blah dialogue blah.
     'Blah blah new paragraph dialogue blah

Note there's no closing quote at the end of the first para.

The fact it's a single quote is not a factor. All quotes are single.

M

[Gyppo]

That's the convention, Mark.  No closing quote until that bit of dialogue is finished.

Although it is broken in paragraphs the same person is still speaking.

But the speech mark at the start of each paragraph is an alert/reminder to the reader that the same person is still talking.

Gyppo

[Mark Hoffmann]

Thanks, G. I'm assuming not everyone uses that format. Or have I not been paying attention for the last 50 years of reading. 

[hillwalker3000]

Thanks, G. I'm assuming not everyone uses that format. Or have I not been paying attention for the last 50 years of reading. 

Everyone uses it - to the best of my knowledge - unless they don't have a full grasp of correct punctuation. You only close quotes when that person stops speaking.

[Mark Hoffmann]

You live and learn. 

[Jo Bannister]

I'm glad you're enjoying the book, anyway, Mark.

Gyppo and Hilly have covered the punctuation issue.  In a way it's OK that you've been reading for 50 years and not noticed this.  It suggests that what you've been reading is sufficiently gripping and well-fashioned that you didn't have to notice the punctuation.  Done properly, it shouldn't impose too much on your consciousness.

Making me wonder why, after 50 years, it was my book that drew your attention to it...

[Mark Hoffmann]

Hi Jo

I enjoyed your book enough to buy the next one straight away. I've just started Sins of the Heart. 

I think there are two possible reasons why I spotted the punctuation. Flicking through my bookcase I was unable to find any book with paragraph breaks mid dialogue. So maybe it's relatively rare. But I think the more likely reason is that I read the book on a kindle which has quite a small screen so I had the font enlarged. That seems to emphasise para breaks due to the size of the indent in relation to the small number of words per line.

Mark

[Gyppo]

Mark's right about things seeming more obvious on a kindle with a larger font.

I use mine in landscape mode, so the lines are longer, but the indents can seem huge compared to what you see on paper.

Gyppo

[Jo Bannister]

If you're going to start talking tech, I'm going home.

[Gyppo]

It's not tech, it's physics ;-)

[Jo Bannister]

No, I know about physics.  I like physics.  It's what keeps the earth/moon system rotating around a centre of gravity situated inside the larger body.  It's what produces the concept that there are particles which need to be spun not through 360 degrees but through 720 degrees before they present the same appearance.  It's what ensures that a piece of toast dropped from a table will always land butter-side down.

No, what you're talking about is tech.  Any minute now someone will mention the word Woofer (or possibly Tweeter) and I shall go home, but I'll return with my gun. 

(Incidentally, isn't it nice to hear from Hilly again?  I don't mind being the resident pedant, I just like not being the only resident pedant.) 

[Gyppo]

At the risk of being shot I have always thought a sub-woofer was a second-grade woofer.  Whatever a woofer is.  It ought to be a dog.

Physics is the Grandaddy science which provides and supports the playing field on which the other lesser sciences can strut their sometimes ephemeral stuff.  If, for example, physics didn't make water flow downhill - under normal circumstances -  Biology would be screwed.

Gyppo

[Patrick Wood]

A set of collectively accepted criteria for written English is known as a convention. We utilize these rules to make our writing more legible and to make it easier for our readers to understand what we're trying to communicate. For example, we usually read different types of quotations on social media or on many different websites. For example; https://mytutorsource.com/blog/educational-quotes/ . If you look at these quotes you will realize it may be a bit difficult if they were written simply as a paragraph. A convention can be classified into four categories: spelling, sentence form, capitalization, and punctuation.