Mouthing words

I don't know of any "rules" per say. I admit, I've always hated grammer and considered it a nessasary evil. If I were to have someone mouth a word, I would use italics. Quotation marks really should only be used for actual speech and a few other exceptions. Otherwise, for me at least, it's a bit confusing. I've always have considered quotation marks to be mostly speech, otherwise the sentence feels wierd. I've always been used to thought in italics, which goes along with mouthing since in both situations no one is speaking. And then again, I certailnly think a word in my head when I mouth it. Plus, italics, being thought, sort of represent sneaky, no one else knows, I don't want them to know, kind of thing, and my guess is that if you are mouthing a word, there is a certain someone who shouldn't find out what it is you are mouthing. Muhahaha. My two scents, maybe someone who knows what transitive and intransitive means will show up and tell me to check out the grammer forum and tell you to use quotations.

For a second I thought she was choking, but then I realized she was silently saying GO, her shooing hand reinforcing the idea.

I don't know of any rules. Either one works for me.

I don't know if there is a rule, but the version with the quotation marks looks better to me. I reserve italics for things that that the narrator is thinking and that no other character knows. I think that if someone is mouthing a word, he or she is communicating, even if it is a voiceless communication.

She glanced up. She made a shooing gesture at me with one hand [or "waved a hand as if to shoo me away"]and mouthed, “Go.”

("Seeing I was still standing there" – this is something the POV character can only infer.)

I could be totally way off base and definitely don't take my advice, wait until someone commments on it, but to me it looks better with single quotes.

If this is completely wrong could someone tell me because I probably would have written it like that.
Thanks,

J


She glanced up and seeing I was still standing there waved her hand in a shooing manner and mouthed, 'Go'.

Mouthng

My rule is that quotation marks are used for any and all spoken words, whether said silently or aloud. If she says it, it's dialogue, so put it in quotation marks.

Italics can also be used if the word or two she mouths are intense enough to neeed the extra emphasis, but this is a separate issue.

Me, too. What Jamesaritchie said.

I think it is logically consistent with things like:

. . . she shouted.
. . . she said.
. . . she whispered.
. . . she mouthed.

scribbler1382 said:

For a second I thought she was choking, but then I realized she was silently saying GO, her shooing hand reinforcing the idea.

Click to expand...

For a second I thought she was impersonating a goldfish...

Or how about:

Her mouth was flapping around like a goldfish.
'Hang on a minute' I said, 'You're mouthing too fast!'

Quote it. Just because it wasn't heard does not mean that it wasn't said.

does a dead body falling in a deserted forrest make a noise when it lands?