Direct and Indirect speech
Suppose Ahmed met you on his way to college and told you, "I have lost my book." you can report this bit information to any other person in two ways, e .g:
a) Ahmed said to me, "I have lost my book." b)Ahmed told me that he had lost his book.
In (a) you have reported the very words used by Ahmed and to make it clear you have put this words within inverted commas, separating it at the same time by a comma. This is called direct speech.
It may also be noted that "said" is called Reporting verb and I have lost my book is called the Reported speech.
In (b) you have reported in your own words, what Ahmed had said. This is called indirect speech. Let us see another example:
• The tailor said to me, "I am too busy to prepare your dress today." (Direct speech)
• The tailor told me that he was too busy to prepare my dress that day. (Indirect speech)
It should be noted that in changing from the direct into the indirect speech:
1) The comma between the reporting speech, and the inverted commas have disappeared.
2) The pronouns "I" and "your" in reported speech have be changed into "he" and "my". 3) The verb "am" in the reported Speech has been changed into "was".
4) The adverb "today" in the reported speech has been changed into "that day".
These changes in pronouns, verb and some other words are made according to certain rules. Let us deal with these rules one by one.
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