A Question About a Sentence My Daughter Is Writing--w/ Quotes.

Updated on March 19, 2013
*.*. asks from Mystic, CT
16 answers

If this is the sentence:

"You played that game great,", He replied.

"You played that game great," he replied.

Does she capitalize the H or not??? Her teacher said she does not...

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So What Happened?

She is a teen. I told her that I would check---I actually forgot the rule ! She still was not sure about it because there was another sentence that it was capitalized and it was NOT marked wrong.
But, that happens...
I agree w/ S, too !

TY for your help !!!!

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T.S.

answers from Washington DC on

The teacher is correct. What made you think the teacher was wrong?

We do not capitalize words in the middle of a sentence unless they are proper nouns. It's all one sentence, so you don't capitalize he in the middle of it.

Also, punctuation goes before the punctuation mark, so exactly as you wrote the second example.

Separately(and it's probably okay because it's a quote and people don't always speak using correct grammar), you don't play games great, you play them well... or fantastically... or superbly... or any adverb... but not an adjective.

HTH
T.

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M.S.

answers from Tulsa on

Probably in the second sentence that was NOT marked wrong, the teacher just missed it. Have you ever tried grading 25 essay papers? The teacher noticed the first instance and just missed the second one.

5 moms found this helpful

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R.M.

answers from Cumberland on

I don't think so, unless God was speaking.

9 moms found this helpful

J.S.

answers from Hartford on

"You played that game well," he replied.

8 moms found this helpful
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L.P.

answers from Los Angeles on

Not to mention there are extra commas in the first sentence.

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R.K.

answers from Appleton on

Neither it's bad grammer.

"You played a great game," he replied.

Unless, the character is a person of low education or low intelligence, proper English is always a good idea. Of course there are regional dialects even in the U.S.; in the South it is correct to say 'youall' as one word, for example. Dialog is difficult to write because so much of the time we have to toss out everything we learned about proper English or the character sounds stiff and unreal.

4 moms found this helpful
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V.P.

answers from Columbus on

Of course not. The teacher is correct.
Only if "he" comes at the beginning of the sentence should it be capitalized, as in:
He said,...

4 moms found this helpful
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D..

answers from Miami on

If you pick up any book that has a "conversation" written in it, you'll see that none of the "he replied" type of comments after a quote have a capital except the word "I" and there are never 2 commas. Your daughter should have learned that a long time ago. I wonder why you are you questioning the teacher.

Get your daughter to ask the teacher for a "cheat sheet" of rules regarding this so that she (and you) will know from now on how this is done.

Dawn

3 moms found this helpful
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G.B.

answers from Oklahoma City on

When the word He/Him is capitalized within a sentence it refers to God, as in "He leads me by quiet streams, He refreshes me..." that is paraphrased of course....lol.

This is the way I have always been taught in church, the newer translations of the bible have taken out the capitals and made it less common to see the words written like this.

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T.H.

answers from Kansas City on

I just wanted to add that you don't ever capitalize he, she, it (unless of course at the beginning of a sentence) but you would capitalize Mom, Dad, Aunt, etc. if you were using it in place of a name...

ex..."I called Mom and asked her if I could go to the party," said Katie

or

"I called my mom and asked her if I could go to the party," said Katie.

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D.N.

answers from Boston on

The second line is correct- you don't capitalize "he". And I agree with those who said "great" should be replaced with "well".

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S.T.

answers from Washington DC on

no capital, but that's not the problem.
it's a bad sentence. 'great' is an adjective, you need an adverb.
it should read 'you played that game well.'
and no, no capital.
khairete
S.

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R.M.

answers from San Francisco on

No, listen to her teacher. Unless the sentence is referring to God, in which case it would be capitalized. :)

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M.L.

answers from Colorado Springs on

The "he" refers, of course, to the man speaking to the game player. (Gamma G. is right - in the King James version of the Bible that pronoun, when referring to the Lord, is spelled with a capital.)

However, the "he" in this sentence does not refer to God - nor does it come at the beginning of the sentence, which would naturally require initial capitalization.

This is still part of the same sentence, even though it is not part of the "spoken" part! The sentence goes on, and "he" comes at the end. So it is not capitalized. Your daughter was right to capitalize "You" because it began the sentence, but "he" is correct in the middle. Teacher was right. (Maybe teacher missed the other one you mentioned.)

Now I'll get TOO detailed. Sometimes that helps when you want to make something stick in your mind (and sometimes it'll just drive you crazy). You daughter might have written,

"'You played a great game,' he said. He added, a few seconds later, 'Who made the final score?'"

In the first sentence, "he" is not capitalized, but in the second sentence, it is.

Some comments have noted that there is a problem with "You played that game great." The reason is because "great" is an adjective, and it doesn't describe a verb (action word) like "played." She could use it to describe "game" or even "you" ("You did so well, you great field hockey player, you!")

For the verb "played," she wants an adverb, because - as its name implies - an adverb goes with a verb. It could be, "You played that game greatly," but that would be awkward. There are plenty of other adverbs to choose from.

The exception would be if speaking this way is meant to be part of "his" character, and "he" is shown in the story to make other such common mistakes.

Often, when I'm working on writing, I get to the point where absolutely NOTHING looks right! I second-guess every word, every letter, every punctuation mark. Then I have to get away from it and let my brains unscramble.

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S.W.

answers from Minneapolis on

Exactly what Thea S. said.

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A.L.

answers from Austin on

Her word "he" is lowercase here, because the comma at the end of the quote indicates that the sentence is not ended.

"You played that game great," he replied.

However, if a new sentence is starting:

"You played that game great." He replied to her question exactly the way she had hoped.

So, in the sentence the teacher did not mark wrong, does the quote end with a period, or a comma?

(Of course, it's also possible that the teacher made a mistake and missed one. Take the extra point!)

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