Timeline for Phrase "you might ask"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 16, 2018 at 15:57 | comment | added | Green Grasso Holm | @AmirhoseinRiazi, both are about right, but with comments. Re 1, one would normally put a comma instead of a colon after "ask". A colon is more dramatic, and would be used to create an effect. A comma is the ordinary punctuation here. Re 2, you should have a period, not a question mark, after "ask". It occurred to me that you may have placed a question mark there because it was the end of your question consisting of your entire note up to that point, but I wanted to make sure you knew that example 2, on its own, should have a period after "ask". | |
| Aug 10, 2018 at 15:00 | comment | added | a.RR | 1.You may ask: "What does it mean?" , 2."What does it mean?" you may ask? Which one is correct? | |
| Mar 8, 2018 at 19:52 | comment | added | ohwilleke | I agree with the second two examples, but putting a quotation mark in the middle of a sentence without delimiting it with quotation marks or parentheses would be something that I would correct as a copy editor. | |
| Mar 8, 2018 at 19:22 | comment | added | Green Grasso Holm | (This responds to another comment that has now disappeared.) I'd write, > "Who did it? you might ask", the detective said. < BTW in U.S. usage, the comma would always go to the left of the closing quote, as would a period; U.K. usage is for them to go to the right of the closing quote. I'm from the U.S. but, as someone who writes instructions for software, I use quotes frequently to delimit what someone should actually type, or exactly what a label or button reads, so I put a closing comma or period between quotes only if it's really part of the text to be entered or displayed. | |
| Mar 8, 2018 at 19:01 | history | answered | Green Grasso Holm | CC BY-SA 3.0 |