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Stop defacing quotes with brackets

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Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#151

Post by tomc1985 »

exmadscientist wrote: post #8
tomc1985 wrote: post #3

Hard disagree, the shift in perspective from third-person to the first-person quote is jarring. You use the brackets to mold the quote into the grammatical context of the sentence that surrounds. Extra emphasis on the context of the grammar , as changing the overall context alters its message. You can also use those brackets to cut out unnecessary/irrelevant/extraneous words. A necessity, sometimes, and one that is e…

I'm sorry, but you are simply wrong. Quotes are, well, quotes , and if their grammar absolutely needs to be edited to fit your prose, then that means you shouldn't be using that quote. Editing a quote should be done with grave solemnity -- you are changing someone else's words -- and only to clarify meaning that was disturbed when you extracted the quote from its natural context. Anything else can be handled in your…

I should have mentioned I was coming from a reporting context. The AP style guide we were held to found it to be permissible.

I agree that in fiction or other forms of prose, that the writer should try and mold the surrounding context to fit the quote. But when I did journalism I didn't always have a lot of time to do so. If you're using quotes heavily, from a variety of sources, not all of them are going to fit -- you can either spend a long time rewriting your text until you get it right, or you can do some selective editing and preserve the flow without having to refactor your entire piece.

That said I don't have a hard rule about switching perspective. If you can make it work without bracketing quotes, great! But it's one of those things you have to handle with care, and isn't always practical. Hence, brackets.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#152

Post by dragonwriter »

exmadscientist wrote: post #8
tomc1985 wrote: post #3

Hard disagree, the shift in perspective from third-person to the first-person quote is jarring. You use the brackets to mold the quote into the grammatical context of the sentence that surrounds. Extra emphasis on the context of the grammar , as changing the overall context alters its message. You can also use those brackets to cut out unnecessary/irrelevant/extraneous words. A necessity, sometimes, and one that is e…

I'm sorry, but you are simply wrong. Quotes are, well, quotes , and if their grammar absolutely needs to be edited to fit your prose, then that means you shouldn't be using that quote. Editing a quote should be done with grave solemnity -- you are changing someone else's words -- and only to clarify meaning that was disturbed when you extracted the quote from its natural context. Anything else can be handled in your…

> Editing a quote should be done with grave solemnity -- you are changing someone else's words

Editorial interpolation isn't changing someone else's words, it's explicit, clearly delineated, paraphrasing.

> I don't consider snipping or eliding to be editing the quote,

It absolutely is editing, which is why it also is usually also marked by explicit editorial marks in brackets just as editorial interpolation is, except when you are snipping from the beginning or end of the quote, and even then may be marked if you aren't doing so at natural breaks in the source text.

As for interpolation, you use explicit marks to show that you've done it, and in either case it is wrong to do it to change the meaning.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#153

Post by titzer »

bobthepanda wrote: post #146
titzer wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a way to do that by adding context outside the quote but keep the quote verbatim. "It's an older code, sir, but it checks out", the officer said, referring to the stolen access code Han had just provided, stolen from god knows where, god knows how long ago. See, now the original quote is undisturbed and the added context is less authoritative (on purpose), since it is not inserted into the quote. The provena…

But now you’ve basically doubled or tripled the length of the whole sentence. The primary usage I see of this is to replace some second or third person pronoun with the actual name of the person, which is much simpler than appending a short biography of the person and trivially easy to verify.

Yeah, there is a cost to being precise. We can think of other ways to make it shorter, but we should respect the integrity of what is in quotes. Another option:

Spitballing:

"It is not worth doing," she said, [it=foobar].

We do this all the time in programming languages. Without introducing too much syntax, this is doable.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#154

Post by wool_gather »

jancsika wrote: post #144

Somehow this makes me think of a story about the Bush-era euphemism for torture: "extended interrogation techniques." Everyone on Fox news taught themselves to use this euphemism in smooth, everyday punditry. It spread very quickly. Later, perhaps around the mid 2000s or so, there was some additional talking point added about some prominent Democrat's support for torture after 9/11. Could have been Hilary in a Senate…

It doesn't really affect your point, but the term was "enhanced", not "extended". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniq...

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#155

Post by gugagore »

titzer wrote: post #133
kqr wrote: post #2

This does not address the primary way I (ab?)use these brackets: to fill in the subject explicitly when the original author refers to it only implicitly. So quoting the last clause in the above paragraph, I might write > when the author refers to [the subject] only implicitly. The obvious alternative is to quote a longer passage. Maybe this is one of those cases where conciseness fights with authenticity. Another sol…

There is a way to do that by adding context outside the quote but keep the quote verbatim. "It's an older code, sir, but it checks out", the officer said, referring to the stolen access code Han had just provided, stolen from god knows where, god knows how long ago. See, now the original quote is undisturbed and the added context is less authoritative (on purpose), since it is not inserted into the quote. The provena…

Although it happens often in natural communication, I find there is more chance for confusion, especially by a non-native reader, when a pronoun (or any proform) appears before its antecedent.

So resolving the pronoun with square brackets can be less confusing, to say nothing of the benefits of brevity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphora

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#156

Post by valarauko »

jancsika wrote: post #144

Somehow this makes me think of a story about the Bush-era euphemism for torture: "extended interrogation techniques." Everyone on Fox news taught themselves to use this euphemism in smooth, everyday punditry. It spread very quickly. Later, perhaps around the mid 2000s or so, there was some additional talking point added about some prominent Democrat's support for torture after 9/11. Could have been Hilary in a Senate…

> Somehow this makes me think of a story about the Bush-era euphemism for torture: "extended interrogation techniques."

Is this the Mandela effect at work, or do I recall them being "Enhanced interrogation techniques"?

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#157

Post by gugagore »

titzer wrote: post #153
bobthepanda wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now you’ve basically doubled or tripled the length of the whole sentence. The primary usage I see of this is to replace some second or third person pronoun with the actual name of the person, which is much simpler than appending a short biography of the person and trivially easy to verify.

Yeah, there is a cost to being precise. We can think of other ways to make it shorter, but we should respect the integrity of what is in quotes. Another option: Spitballing: "It is not worth doing," she said, [it=foobar]. We do this all the time in programming languages. Without introducing too much syntax, this is doable.

I'd say we only do something like that in programming if there's a benefit to using other values for `it` in other contexts, and if we'd like to refer to a template `"It is not worth doing" by name.

If you're just going to use it once, or if all usages have `[it=foobar]`, I don't think you'd do it.

I could imagine doing something like what you mention if I had moved code from another context, and I wanted to have a commit that shows plainly that it was moved verbatim. But then I'd make subsequent commit where I do the necessary substitution.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#158

Post by hansvm »

titzer wrote: post #133
kqr wrote: post #2

This does not address the primary way I (ab?)use these brackets: to fill in the subject explicitly when the original author refers to it only implicitly. So quoting the last clause in the above paragraph, I might write > when the author refers to [the subject] only implicitly. The obvious alternative is to quote a longer passage. Maybe this is one of those cases where conciseness fights with authenticity. Another sol…

There is a way to do that by adding context outside the quote but keep the quote verbatim. "It's an older code, sir, but it checks out", the officer said, referring to the stolen access code Han had just provided, stolen from god knows where, god knows how long ago. See, now the original quote is undisturbed and the added context is less authoritative (on purpose), since it is not inserted into the quote. The provena…

> Otherwise we are on the slippery slope to, "oh, what they really meant to say is [phrase phrase phrase]".

Slippery slope arguments tend to ignore that if a result is actually unconscionable then regardless of the apparent slope we'll still actually stop somewhere. Additionally, they often could be applied just as well in reverse, indicating some sort of flaw in the reasoning: "We can no longer even substitute proper nouns into our quotations: how long is it till we can't use 'sic', and from there it's a slippery slope to not being able to fully quote people at all for fear of misrepresentation."

In this case though, what would be so bad about the use of brackets changing over time? Changes don't happen in isolation, so presumably people would adapt, recognizing that the author's interpretation probably plays a key role (much as it already does because of the author choosing the context to omit and the new home for an unsuspecting snippet).

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#159

Post by valarauko »

marton78 wrote: post #59

This reminds me of how much I hate people saying "quote unquote" followed by what they're quoting. If you really insist on unquoting, please do it where it belongs. However, if you trust me in determining where your quote ends, please spare me the noise.

You also gotta do the "air quotes" fingers while saying "quote unquote"

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#160

Post by ddingus »

dsjoerg wrote: post #140
ddingus wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"mold the quote" Are you quoting them, or not? Which is it? Seriously.

Quoting the meaning, not the words.

We do not quote meanings.

Quote is a literal expression, verbatim. Or it is a precise statement, form of contract, part of offer and acceptance.

Perhaps you intended something else?

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