indirect speech

Someone's words rephrased to become part of a sentence that is not a quotation.

For example, ‘I want you all to vote for me tomorrow,’ said the candidate’ can be rephrased as The candidate said he wanted them all to vote for him on the following day.

The second sentence is a reported or indirect version of the first, which contains direct speech. The rules for making the change include leaving out quotation marks, changing the verb tense, the pronoun form, and such words as today, now, here, and these.

In indirect speech it is sometimes necessary to express the tone by using such words as ‘politely’:

‘Will you lend me your ruler, please?’ the girl asked. The girl asked politely whether he would lend her his ruler.

It is also important to avoid ambiguity:

‘Just look at your lettuces,’ said Joe to Fred. ‘They are bigger than mine. You have beaten me this time.’ Joe told Fred to look at his lettuces and said they were bigger than his. He had beaten him that time.

In this case the indirect version has not made it clear whose were the bigger lettuces.