A question in the middle of a sentence

Misa Buckley · Feb 25, 2012

My characters are having a discussion and I have the following sentence that's being tricky punctuation-wise:

"I have persons in my employ that are... ah, less than holy, shall we say? who can look into it without any untoward comeback."

I reworked it as:

"I have persons in my employ that are – ah, less than holy, shall we say? – who can look into it without any untoward comeback."

But am not sure which (if either) is grammatically correct.

jaksen · Feb 25, 2012

The second ones looks okay to me. It's how I would write it, except I would write, "I have persons in my employ who are - "

But if your character would say a person that...

Then that is how you write it.

Maryn · Feb 25, 2012

I agree with jaksen. The dashes of self-interruption, including closing punctuation of that self-interrupting question, work for me. So does 'who,' but as noted, only if your character who use that word.

Maryn, high-fiving jaksen

HoneyBadger · Feb 25, 2012

In that context "shall we say" could easily be a suggestion, not a question, so "I have persons in my employ that are... ah, less than holy, shall we say, who can look into it without any untoward comeback." could work.

Misa Buckley · Feb 25, 2012

HoneyBadger said:
In that context "shall we say" could easily be a suggestion, not a question, so "I have persons in my employ that are... ah, less than holy, shall we say, who can look into it without any untoward comeback." could work.

Eh, I hadn't thought of that. Thanks.

And thanks to everyone else for pitching in. It's appreciated

Sentosa · Feb 25, 2012

Misa Buckley said:
My characters are having a discussion and I have the following sentence that's being tricky punctuation-wise:

"I have persons in my employ that are... ah, less than holy, shall we say? who can look into it without any untoward comeback."

I reworked it as:

"I have persons in my employ that are – ah, less than holy, shall we say? – who can look into it without any untoward comeback."

But am not sure which (if either) is grammatically correct.

I find both examples a trifle clumsy. This made me stop to try and analyse what is being said, and what the dialogue is trying to achieve.

Can you achieve what you want by using several simpler sentence constructions?

A question in the middle of a sentence

Misa Buckley

Extraordinary Romance

jaksen

Caped Codder

Maryn

I Tried

HoneyBadger

terribly loud, emotionally distant

Misa Buckley

Extraordinary Romance

Sentosa