Golden quotes

The awards season kicked off on Sunday night in Los Angeles with the Golden Globes, organized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA).

The black-and-white silent film The Artist took home three prizes — for best comedy, best score and best actor (lead actor Jean Dujardin).

British comedian Ricky Gervais had been invited back to host the ceremony despite offending most of the audience in 2011. This year, although he made a few barbed comments, he seemed quite tame in comparison to the previous year.

When Gervais introduced Madonna by referring to her hit song "Like a Virgin" and then coughing meaningfully, Madonna gave as good as she got. She joked:

"If I'm like a virgin, Ricky, why don't you come over here and do something about it?"

To repeat what Madonna said to Ricky Gervais using reported speech, we need to change the verbs:

Madonna said if she was like a virgin, why didn't Ricky come over to her and do something about it?"

When we use reported speech, if the reporting verb (said, answered, etc.) is in the past, then it is normal to use a different tense and different pronouns from the ones the speaker used.

Action → reported speech
Present simple → past simple
Present continuous → past continuous
Past simple → past perfect
Present perfect → past perfect

Read some of the more memorable quotes from the Golden Globes in our exercise on the next page. Can you turn what the actors said into reported speech?

Dagmar Taylor