Fall of the Kings

[louiselux]

I think the following is a little Harry Potter in-joke::

"Alcuin brought it as a bride-gift to Queen Diane - it says so in the Official History of the University."

"You actually read that?" someone asked.

It's from The Fall of the Kings, by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman.

Incidentally, I've just noticed that, "You actually read that?" someone asked, follows a question mark used in speech with a lower case s.  I've also seen a question mark followed with a upper case, as in: "You actually read that?" Someone asked. The latter has always looked extremely ugly to me but I'm never sure which is the accepted way. I must solve this once and for all - it's bugged me for literally years. I must like the suspense, obviously.

I seem to have given up on The Fall of the Kings - the mystical, faerie-type goings on just aren't doing it for me - although I enjoyed the way that the book debunks that sort of thing at the beginning.  The key thing though is that the characters are less interesting than in Swordspoint. I just don't care what happens to them.

I need to reread The Lion's Mane to check out the Holmes voice. saunteringdown, that odd Sherlock/Holmes crossover snippet I promised suddenly got all complicated and  much longer, but I will get it done.

Comments

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

The latter has always looked extremely ugly to me but I'm never sure which is the accepted way.

The former. The latter is incorrect, as well as being extremely ugly.

A question mark used in speech with a lower case s following the quotation marks is correct because the full stop under the ? is kind of subsumed in the full stop at the end of the sentence. The sentence has not ended with the question mark.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Your explanation makes sense to me. I use the small case myself, simply because I can't bear how the other looks, but I've seen the upper case used a few times recently and am now wondering if it's a UK/US difference. Or maybe it's just a case of bad grammar.

[snowballjane.livejournal.com]

I think it's a case of the evil Word affecting proper grammar. If you have auto-correct switched on, it caps it up automatically. I suspect a lot of people don't notice it's happened and thus it creeps into common use.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

The former is correct, the latter is Very Very Wrong, unless Someone is a proper noun. *shudders*!

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Thank you for solving the mystery! (well, not really much of a mystery, I know) I've always used a small case, but I've seen otherwise quite good authors insist otherwise, leaving me in doubt.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

yep.

[snapesgirl34.livejournal.com]

Nice icon. ^_~ I LOVE Oscar Wilde. He's so wonderfully witty.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Thanks:)

[crotalus-atrox.livejournal.com]

No worries; I'm on holiday regardless, so take your time. :)