January 8, 2009: Issue 272
Avoid breaking up quotations with brackets. They interrupt the flow or, worse, leave a reader wondering what was really said.
If a quote doesn’t make sense without a parenthetical explanation, paraphrase it.
awkward: “I inherited this piece [the mahogany dresser] from my grandmother,” he says. “It’s as precious to me as her wedding band.”
awkward: “I inherited this [mahogany dresser] from my grandmother,” he says. “It’s as precious to me as her wedding band.”
preferred: He inherited the mahogany dresser from his grandmother. “It’s as precious to me as her wedding band,” he says.
Be especially careful about censoring words of questionable taste. Readers might mentally substitute a term far more vulgar than the one you deleted. Consider:
“I didn’t want to mess around with chemical pesticides and all that toxic crap,” she says.
“I didn’t want to mess around with chemical pesticides and all that toxic [stuff],” she says.
(The better option here would be to use less of the quote: “I didn’t want to mess around with chemical pesticides,” she says.)
C is for censorship: See how a few well-placed bleeps can make even a Sesame Street sketch sound as if it deserves a parental advisory. For the record, the missing word is count.
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