labour or label

[jiang]

Dear teachers,

The following sentence is from a paper:

Moreover "sorry" and excuse me" have a clear division of labour in English. If tramping on other's foot accidentally or colliding with others, it can only say 'sorry'.

My question is: Does "sorry" and excuse me" have a clear division of labour in English correct? What does labour here mean? Is it possible that it should be LABEL?

You may have noticed there are some mistakes but since I can identify them I am not asking abour them.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you in advance.

Jiang

[Tdol]

It means that they do different jobs- sorry is for apologising and excuse me is for attracting attention, moving past someone, etc. They function in a similar area of language, but are not synonyms and do different things.

[jiang]

Oh, I see.
By the way, 's' in "sorry" and 'e' in "excuse me" should be capitalized. Is that right?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you in advance.

Jiang

It means that they do different jobs- sorry is for apologising and excuse me is for attracting attention, moving past someone, etc. They function in a similar area of language, but are not synonyms and do different things.

[Tdol]

Not necessarily- you are using them not as direct speech but as words, so there's no need for capitalisation. I used italics to show this, while you used inverted commas.

[jiang]

Dear tdol,
So in the sentence:

People say 'thank you ' when others helped them instead of People say 'Thank you ' when others helped them?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you in advance.

Not necessarily- you are using them not as direct speech but as words, so there's no need for capitalisation. I used italics to show this, while you used inverted commas.

[Casiopea]

Try,

direct speech: People say, "Thank you."
word: People say thank you.

[jiang]

What if there is quotation mark?
As you said word: People say thank you . What I didn't understand is that 'sorry' is a word 'excuse me' is a sentence. In the following sentence 'sorry' and 'excuse me' are not direct speech but they are quoted. In this case we should regard them as words instead of direct speech. Is that right?


Moreover "sorry" and "excuse me" have a clear division of labour in English. If tramping on other's foot accidentally or colliding with others, it can only say 'sorry'.

Try,

direct speech: People say, "Thank you."
word: People say thank you.

[Casiopea]

In the following sentence 'sorry' and 'excuse me' are not direct speech but they are quoted. In this case we should regard them as words instead of direct speech. Is that right?

That's right. See 5, below. Note, you are not alone in the confusion of things.

As the eminent critic I.A. Richards noted, quotation marks and italics serve many purposes.

1. Sometimes they show merely that we are quoting and where our quotation begins and ends.
2. Sometimes they imply that the word or words within them are in some way open to question and are only to be taken in some special sense with reference to some special definition.
3. Sometimes they suggest further that what is quoted is nonsense or that there is really no such thing as the thing they profess to name.
4. Sometimes they suggest that the words are improperly used. The quotation marks are equivalent to “the so called.”
5. Sometimes they indicate only that we are talking of the words as distinguished from their meanings. “Is” and “at” are shorter than “above.” “Chien” means what “dog” means, and so on.

There are many other uses. This short list will suffice to show how heavily we overwork this too-servicable writing device. Some of these uses accordingly are taken over by italics, but there again ambiguity easily arises. We italicise for emphasis (of several kinds) as well as to show that we are talking about words themselves or about some special use made of them. In speech, of course, many of these subtleties can be handled by intonation and pausing, though not with high uniformity or equally well by all speakers.

Source

[jiang]

& ,

Dear Cas,
I am still confused. I think 'thank you' and 'excuse me' are sentences, not words. Is that right? If it is, should the first letter be capitalized if it is not direct speech? I am copying a sentence here:

In a situation when a man compliments a woman with “You really don’t look your age!” the woman would reply “Thank you.”

Is it correct?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you in advance.

Jiang

That's right. See 5, below. Note, you are not alone in the confusion of things.


As the eminent critic I.A. Richards noted, quotation marks and italics serve many purposes.

1. Sometimes they show merely that we are quoting and where our quotation begins and ends.
2. Sometimes they imply that the word or words within them are in some way open to question and are only to be taken in some special sense with reference to some special definition.
3. Sometimes they suggest further that what is quoted is nonsense or that there is really no such thing as the thing they profess to name.
4. Sometimes they suggest that the words are improperly used. The quotation marks are equivalent to “the so called.”
5. Sometimes they indicate only that we are talking of the words as distinguished from their meanings. “Is” and “at” are shorter than “above.” “Chien” means what “dog” means, and so on.

There are many other uses. This short list will suffice to show how heavily we overwork this too-servicable writing device. Some of these uses accordingly are taken over by italics, but there again ambiguity easily arises. We italicise for emphasis (of several kinds) as well as to show that we are talking about words themselves or about some special use made of them. In speech, of course, many of these subtleties can be handled by intonation and pausing, though not with high uniformity or equally well by all speakers.

Source

[Casiopea]

... should the first letter [of a sentence] be capitalized if it is not direct speech?

If it's not the 1st person singular pronoun or an acronym, I wouldn't capitalize it. After all, it's part of the main sentence, not a sentence unto itself, right? That'd be an example of direct speech.