When is a dialogue tag a dialogue tag?

I’m struggling with dialogue punctuation again. I think I need a grammar book. All the examples of dialogue tags on the web are nice obvious ones: he said, she shouted, and so on.

Here are three examples of where I’m uncertain:

Most of the rest outwardly ridiculed it, saying things like, “It’s only a theory; it’s not proven.”

Many of you reading this are probably thinking, But of course it’s true!

I think I was courteous and helpful, but the gist of my reply (and what I was thinking) was, “What on earth are you doing here then?”


The first I’m reasonably confident about. The second I think is right, but it just looks wrong - dunno why. I’m very wobbly on the last one.

But based on this statement that I did find on the web – “Dialogue tags are the phrases around dialogue that clarify who is speaking and possibly how and to whom that person is speaking as well” – then even “the gist of my reply was” has to be a dialogue tag...

But if any of them aren't dialogue tags, does the punctuation change?

Thanks for any help!
Jon

Thanks everyone. Ok - I think I'm no longer worried about whether or not it's a dialogue tag. It sounds like anything that is dialogue (i.e., read as if spoken) is punctuated the same way. So to test that I now have another example (which I should probably have included in the first batch - sorry):

A fence is also a physical boundary that can be policed, and it eliminates any “Oooh! No idea I was trespassing! Terribly sorry...”

So is this punctuated correctly then? It feels further removed from dialogue than the previous examples. And that makes me feel there shouldn't be a comma after the any (which is why I left it out). But maybe that's wrong?

OK thanks. I guess always having a comma is a safe bet. The more I look at it, the less I mind a comma there anyway.

That's the secret isn't it. Stare at anything long enough and it starts looking OK...