In the following sentence, was it right to put single quotations (if thats what theyre called) around the word "cheese"?. If anyone can reply Id greatly appreciate it thanks! Heres the following sentence. "Say cheese you two!" Susan said as she counted down from three to one. And on the count of one, they wholeheartedly said 'cheese'<---?
If it's narrative instead of dialogue you want, "Say cheese you two!" Susan said as she counted down from three to one. And on the count of one, they wholeheartedly complied. Or ... their voices sounded as one. Or ... the sound of two [fill in the blank] shook the room. Or ... the word, cheese, echoed between two faces. Lots of options.
Oh darn...I missed an opportunity to do a Swifty. "Say cheese you two!" Susan said counting down from three to one. "Cheese...!" they said brightly. .
You didn't ask about it, but actually, it should be , "Say cheese, you two!" . . . because you're referring to the word cheese, rather than what it means. (Unless I'm confusing Chicago and Turabian again, but I think they're the same here).
You don't need to italicize 'cheese' and I don't believe you need to set it off with a comma in a command. But I will defer to more expertise on the comma if I'm wrong.
should not be italicized... and it can have ' ' around it, because it is, in effect, a quote within a quote, whether it's a 'command' or not... there should also be a comma after it, as it's a quoted word... it's akin to: "Sure, you can say 'I'm sorry I hurt you,' but it doesn't help much after the fact," he said. or "You forgot to say 'please,' Donny," his mother scolded.
Mamma - a question for you then, shouldn't words that are referred to as words be italicized? The way I saw this, since the speaker is already speaking, and the person is not quoting someone else's direct speech, then it defaults to referencing the word, and that's done with italics. Where did I go wrong? And thanks for the clarification in advance.
the only time a word should be italicized is if it's a foreign word, or needs to be emphasized... otherwise, it goes in " "... such as with: What does "schlepping" mean?
