How do I punctuate a statement that a character is ordered to say in a future scenario?
How do I punctuate a statement that a character is ordered to say in a future scenario?
I don't want to use speech marks because its not a quote or a dialogue. My thinking may be wrong though.
It's an instruction to say something in a future scenario.
For example:
We were told by the headmaster never to engage with bullies. If you are ever abused by them, say: Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
Here the statement in question is:
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
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1 answer
But those words are a quote, so they should be quoted.
If your text is in first person — so that your narration is actually the thoughts of the narrator speaking to the reader — then you'd use speech quotes. (In the U.S. it's double quotes; in the U.K. and other places it's single. I'm using U.S. punctuation as the example.)
We were told by the headmaster never to engage with bullies. If you are ever abused by them, say, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." I'm not sure where the headmaster got his ideas from, but the tactic never worked for me.
If your text is Person A speaking to Person B, then the relevant statement is a quote inside dialogue, and punctuate it appropriately with nested quotes:
John said, "We were told by the headmaster never to engage with bullies. If you are ever abused by them, say, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.' Personally, I found a good right hook to be more effective than a weak cliché."
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