My question: If a publication were to quote an individual, would it ever be appropriate to include quotation marks in the quote?
Background: I was reading an article and this was written:
So, I’m trying to figure out if they (the publication) are telling me that Engle actually said the words “in a real match” or if they (the publication) are just sticking it in there in case I don’t already know…
Assuming that the writer was in 100% grammar compliance, isn’t there a better way to write this?
You ask about the expression “in a real match” so did you mean to ask if parentheses should be used inside a quote? Properly brackets should be used inside a quote for explanatory material so if the publication were just explaining the quote to you, it should have been " … [in a real match]."
If the speaker actually said “in a real match” as an aside, this punctuation might be OK I guess. Of course if it was a quote from a written source and parentheses were in the original writing, then they’d be correct as well.
Quotes are done as “So he told me, ‘he said to her, “you can’t say that.”’” Your quote looks like it’s just bad writing. I think this is the punctuation the writer was looking for:
It isn’t that Engle doesn’t respect boxers–“I respect 100% of boxers,” he said–but he doesn’t like to be called out by a man who will probably never even agree to fight him (in a real match).
Wow, how embarrassing. My question didn’t make much sense because … I misread the paragraph (and then proceeded to make a post here on SDMB about my phantom grammar confusion).
Forrest for the trees or something like that… Thanks for your help anyway!