Speech marks and capital letters

[snice]

Can you tell me which of these sentences is correct please:-

"Help me wash the dishes," said Mum, "then you can go out to play."

"Help me wash the dishes," said Mum, "Then you can go out to play."

So was I, Pacific- we weren't told that it had to be one sentence in the OP

Yep, the teacher is wrong.

Off with her head, I say

Now I am really going, honest

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that only Pacific was right

Teacher is a damn fool.

It's absolute rubbish (of the teacher, I presume) to insist that the second part of a quote is always capped. To check, I've just looked in my 2005 copy of New Hart's Rules.

They give the quaint sentence:

May I suggest that you have a bath before supper?

It can be either the more modern version:

"May I suggest," she said, "that you have a bath before supper?"

or the more traditional British form:

"May I suggest", she said, "that you have a bath before supper?"

The only difference is whether the first comma is within or outside the quote marks. The second part of the sentence MUST be lower capped because it is part of the same sentence, all given without punctuation.

In your sentence, however, we have the problem that the original sentence needs some sort of extra punctuation, because there is no conjugation. Thus, dividing it into two sentences is a good option:

"Help me wash the dishes," said Mum. "Then you can go out to play."

The key is the full stop after "Mum".

The only other option is trying to force a semi-colon in there somehow. But the option I've given above just looks right.

Oh, bugger, no full stop allowed. OK, teacher talking crap.

I'm an editor, so I knows these things, I does.

I was right. Hee heee.

snice, you could give the teacher the following example:

"May I suggest," said snice, "that you are talking total and utter codswallop in regards to the English language and how she is wrote."

Yes, winny, you were right, Now can we all go to bed ...

That's just the tone I think is needed here, thanks MotherMountainGoat.

Arse-y and yet informative

can't go to bed yet-am watching Episodes on BBC2-v.gd

I should really put "Arsey yet informative" on my website as my motto. Do you think it will attract clients?

Am not in the UK so have never heard of Episodes^, but I'll take your word it's very good. There are ways and means of watching these things afterwards.

Best of luck with The Teacher.

Teacher is wrong, you are right (we get very little training on punctuation!!!) AND the punctuation ALAWYS goes inside the speech marks. ( speaking as a teacher, we do get things wrong occasionally and get very embarassed when shown up by parents!!!!

The problem is these days "then" is being used as a conjunction.

If you allow that then,
"Help me wash the dishes," said Mum, "then you can go out to play."
is correct.

The teacher is definitely wrong about ALWAYS needing a capital letter after opening speech marks but we tend to teach that as a rule because so many children would have no capital letters to begin any speech if you didn't bang on about ALWAYS needing one. (But she shouldn't have corrected that as it's right not to there.)

Pacific, I'd disagree - the punctuation marks should come before the speech marks in both parts of the direct speech. The OP's first example was the correct one.

I teach pupils to think of the speech marks as a speech bubble in a cartoon. All the words spoken - including punctuation - go inside.

I am totally flummoxed by this now .

It just looks wrong , but I have no superior evidence to prove my point.... and I am a furriner, so what do I know anyway??

Surely,
'then you can go out and play'

is not a sentence,

therefore does not get the 'capital letter, full stop' treatment.
Comma should go before the end of the first bit of speech, IF writer wishes to indicate Mum paused at that point.

No, Pacific is right re: punctuation marks.

VictorianIce- have a look in any book laying about in your house and report back

No, sorry. VictorianIce is right.

But the comma after the first bit can be outside the quotation mark. The full stop at the end of the sentence is within.

Pacific is so so so so wrong.

The punctuation is ALWAYS inside the speech marks.

I'd fight you to the death on that.

snice (back to you), the first one was perfect.

Fight the teacher if need be.

The correct one is the second.

and no, no, no to Pacific with your putting punctuation outside the speechmarks!!!

in US english, you put punctuation outside, in UK english, the punctuation is inside.

all speeches go "speech," person said, "Captial letter rest of speech."

examples

more

oh, and both my things say that example 1 is correct, not a complete sentence so not needing a capital, but that's not what i was taught at school....

one more

I have two books in front of me...

Steven Pressfield 'Last of the Amazons' (Bantam Books) does the first.

Robert Jordan 'The Gathering Storm' (Orbit) does the second.

I propose that Robert Jordan (and therefore sentence 2) be disqualified because by following that rule they then start a sentence with a conjunction with a capital letter which I understood was Bad and Wrong.

i've got Basher's Guide to Punctuation, English Repair Kit and Usborne's guide to Punctuation in front of me, as well as countless KS2 books on punctuation and English.

so nur [pokes tongue out]

Orbit's an American publisher, by the way, so that's right for that book....