I’ve been blessed, over the past 20 or so years, to be able to make a living putting words on pages.
I’ve yet to publish a book, and I was reminded recently at a faculty meeting that newspaper columns are not equal to peer-reviewed articles— at least in the eyes of many in the academic world.
Nonetheless, I have published thousands of stories and columns in newspapers across Texas.
In my day job at the university, I teach young people how to put words on pages.
I enjoy putting words on pages.
I hope you enjoy my words on these pages.
As to not sound self-aggrandizing, I just mention all this because I feel like there are a few things in this world I know a little bit about.
One of them is putting words on pages.
As such, I have long been affirmed in my belief that language changes, and that is okay.
Some years back, I mentioned in a column that some of the conventional rules around grammar might be outdated.
There are some sentences in which it is okay to end with a preposition.
Many English teachers out there will argue this with me, and that’s okay too.
I am selective in the rules that I approve of being broken, though.
The Associated Press Stylebook, a few years ago, decided the words “more than” and “over” can now be interchangeable. I do not agree with this because the cow jumped “over” the moon. The cow did not jump “more than” the moon. “Over” indicates direction, “more than” indicates quantity. Therefore, you have “more than” $100. You don’t have “over” $100 — but I digress.
But some rules should not be broken, and I have come across multiple instances— in just the past few days— of grammar rules that fall in this sacred category.
I finished a book on Saturday and found myself shuffling through the stack of titles on my nightstand for another read. I chose “Normal People” by Sally Rooney. This book was published in 2018 to great acclaim and has since been made into a Hulu series. I may never know how great it is because I was turned off immediately just two pages in.
For some reason, Rooney has decided quotation marks are not needed anywhere in her text. It irked me and it stopped me in my tracks. The opening dialogue was confusing. I had to stop and re-read and try to figure out who said what.
I complained to Jennifer and our daughter Mackenzie the next day. Mackenzie said she had not read the book, but she had heard of the controversy. So, I picked up another book— “Family Meal” by Bryan Washington.
Amazingly, just two pages in, I discovered yet another lack of quotation marks in the dialogue. I was just as confused as with the first book. So, I put down the Washington text, and I picked up “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig.
Jennifer highly recommends it. Haig is a British writer, so his quotation marks are just single quotes. This is still somewhat of an impediment, but quotations are there, nonetheless.
All this had me thoroughly frustrated and I found myself down an online rabbit hole researching this phenomenon.
“Why are authors getting rid of quotation marks?” I asked myself.
I conferred with a colleague in the English department. This is not something new they are teaching there.
And the answer is somewhat unclear though it seems to be becoming more common.
I discovered the most notable author to do this was Cormac McCarthy. When I read that, I was reminded of giving up on his seminal “The Road” within the first chapter.
It’s been a while and I don’t remember the lack of quotation marks, but there was a reason I abandoned the book and that was probably it.
He also omits apostrophes.
He told Oprah in a 2008 interview that he doesn’t like semicolons either. He said punctuation clutters.
But the problem with clutter is distraction. And what is distracting are words that lack punctuation.
He told Oprah he preferred not to, “block the page up with weird little marks. If you write properly, you shouldn’t have to punctuate.”
Now, McCarthy did win a Pulitzer for “The Road,” but I call hogwash.
Why are authors giving up quotation marks? Pretentiousness— it seems to me. There is such thing as artistic license—sure— but writing is not for the writer. Writing is for the reader.
Anything that detracts from easy reading is not worth the artistic license.
Nathaniel Hawthorn once said, “Easy reading is damn hard writing” and he was right.
Some things change and some things never should change. Quotation marks denoting dialogue is one of those things.
According to a 2009 Salon article by Laura Miller entitled “All I want for Christmas is quotation marks,” (man, I wish I could have come up with that headline) there is a growing number of readers who refuse to read books that omit quotation marks.
I am hereby adding my name to that list, and you can quote me on that.
Source: Freepik.com