NESSAholics.com
Other Topics => Completely Off-Topic => Topic started by: rosieposy87 on October 11, 2003, 08:07:15 am
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This is something that has been bugging me for so long now, so i figured someone would have the answer.
Why do, in american magazines/newspapers/any american writing when they quote someone they always add in [something else]- like that? I know that sometimes you add in brackets when you take words out of context in a quote, but this never seems to apply!
I am going to try and find some examples, but please help me! It is annoying me so much!
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1) Americans are stupid.
2) People do it so it's easier to know what someone is refering to when he or she is speaking. If there was an article on blue oranges, and they were interviewing someon who first discovered them, it would go something like this:
A: "I was just walking and saw one lying there."
B: "I was just walking and saw [a blue orange] lying there.
Sentence A is what the interviewee actually said. But, the writer of the article had to change some of the wording in sentence A to make sentence B, which was easer to understand.
3) I sometimes do it, also, when I quote someone. How I use it though, is, like, if I used a phrase to describe or talk about one of my friends who's a girl, and the quote was:
"He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall."
Obviously, if my friend was a girl, I wouldn't refer to her as a "he," so I'd change the quote to:
"[She] may aswell concern [herself] with [her] shadow on the wall."
But that's it. I hope I helped, lol.[/b]
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I think I know what you are talking about. Something like "I know that this [the SCO case] is trying on all of us." Is that what you are talking about?
Yeah, it annoys me too. I think their reasoning is that their readers are too stupid to be able to read the entire article, so the quote needs to stand by itself.
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i was tryin 2 do my history work and the quote i was lookin at had loads of those in, but it didnt have to coz it made sense without it :? and that was an english book, so i dont think its just americans
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Yeah, CeCe that is kinda right. You see, i know that you use it when a quote would make more sense with extra information but the person didn't actually say it. However, sometimes i haven't seen it in this context at all! It annoys the hell out of me too will! lol
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I do that :-\
-Kev
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I do that :-\
-Kev
Well, that hardly comes as a surpise! scum! lol
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ummm dont know
im dumb lol
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*agrees of annoyance*
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yeah... i dont understand it sometimes
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I do that :-\
-Kev
Well, that hardly comes as a surpise! scum! lol
Bah :-P
Well I certainly won't be doing it [using these square brackets] anymore.
-Kev
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I think I know what you are talking about. Something like "I know that this [the SCO case] is trying on all of us." Is that what you are talking about?
Yeah, it annoys me too. I think their reasoning is that their readers are too stupid to be able to read the entire article, so the quote needs to stand by itself.
"The quote needs to stand by itself" is practically a rule of journalism.
---Andrew