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Grammatically Correct: The writer's essential guide to punctuation ...

Grammatically Correct: The writer's essential guide to punctuation ...

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'Are you guilty?' said Wins<strong>to</strong>n.<br />

PUNCTUATION<br />

'Of course I'm guilty!' cried Parsons with a servile glance at the<br />

telescreen. 'You don't think the Party would arrest an innocent man,<br />

do you?' His frog-like face grew calmer, and even <strong>to</strong>ok on a slightly<br />

sanctimonious expression. 'Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,'<br />

he said sententiously. 'It's insidious. It can get hold of you without<br />

your even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my<br />

sleep! Yes, that's a fact. <strong>The</strong>re I was, working away, trying <strong>to</strong> do my<br />

bit-never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all. And then I<br />

started talking in my sleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?'<br />

He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons<br />

<strong>to</strong> utter an obscenity.<br />

'"Down with Big Brother!" Yes, I said that! Said it over and over<br />

again, it seems. Between you and me, old man, I'm glad they got me<br />

before it went any further. Do you know what I'm going <strong>to</strong> say <strong>to</strong><br />

them when I go up before the tribunal? "Thank you," I'm going <strong>to</strong><br />

say, "thank you for saving me before it was <strong>to</strong>o late." '<br />

-GEoRGE ORWELL, Nineteen Eighty-Four<br />

'Oh, Rumpole!' It was an as<strong>to</strong>nishing moment. She Who Must Be<br />

Obeyed actually had her arms around me, she was holding me tightly,<br />

rather as though I were some rare and precious object and not the<br />

old White Elephant that continually got in her way.<br />

'Hilda. Hilda, you're not ... ?' I looked down at her agitated head.<br />

'You weren't worried, were you?'<br />

'Worried? Well, of course I was worried!' She broke away and<br />

resumed the Royal Manner. 'Having you at home all day would have<br />

been impossible!'<br />

-joHN MoRTIMER, Rumpole and the Learned Friends<br />

Note that exclamation points are by no means compulsory in<br />

dialogue every time a speech takes on some emphasis. You may<br />

often prefer <strong>to</strong> let your readers infer a character's emotions from<br />

wording or context.<br />

Athough the exclamation point normally appears at the end of<br />

a sentence, it may occasionally be used as internal <strong>punctuation</strong>. <strong>The</strong><br />

text that follows does not have <strong>to</strong> begin with a capital letter, as it<br />

is still part of the same sentence. (This text may, however, be<br />

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