Use of Quotation marks

[AdrianEdward]

I got into a discussion last week with my granddaughter. The argument revolved around the use of quotation marks when quoting text by unknown authors i.e. Anon.

She argued that since we did not know the author we couldn't know we are actually quoting them correctly; and if we don't quote them correctly then it is not actually a quote. How do we know what the author actually said or wrote if we don't know who they were. At best, we are quoting what someone else claims they wrote or said.

Any comments?

[Josef Essberger]

I got into a discussion last week with my granddaughter. The argument revolved around the use of quotation marks when quoting text by unknown authors i.e. Anon.

She argued that since we did not know the author we couldn't know we are actually quoting them correctly; and if we don't quote them correctly then it is not actually a quote. How do we know what the author actually said or wrote if we don't know who they were. At best, we are quoting what someone else claims they wrote or said.

Any comments?

Most “quotations” are not “accurate” in that sense. Every single quotation from The Bible is a translation, and usually in various forms. Shakespeare himself wrote his name nineteen different ways. I would tell your granddaughter she must be right and leave it at that. Maybe she will get the point