Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

 ak>   ----- Beginning of the citation -----
 ak>  The engineering firm building the bridge at Florida
 ak>  International University had ordered Thursday that
 ak>  the cables be tightened, Mr. Rubio, a Republican,
 ak>  said in a late Thursday tweet. "They were being
 ak>  tightened when it collapsed," he said.
 ak>   ----- The end of the citation -----

 ak>  Any reported speech can be transferred back into direct
 ak>  speech:

 ak>   -----
 ak>  Mr. Rubio said in a late Thursday tweet, "The engineering
 ak>  firm building the bridge at Florida International
 ak>  University ordered Thursday that the cables be tightened".
 ak>   ----


            Theoretically I suppose you could do that, if indeed those were the
 exact words Mr. Rubio used.  But somebody else's account of what Mr. Rubio
said might be a condensation, a simplification, &/or a personal interpretation.



 AH>  Suppose I order some widgets from the XYZ Company, and
 AH>  I'm told "They should be at your door by 8:00 PM Friday."
 AH>  At 9:00 PM on Friday I might say to Dallas "The XYZ Company
 AH>  told me those widgets should be here by now." I see no need
 AH>  to change the verb tense there if the widgets have not yet
 AH>  arrived.

 ak>  When your words are in quotation marks it is direct speech,
 ak>  no changes are needed. In reported speech you remove quotation
 ak>  marks:

 ak>  At 9:00 on Friday I said ... that the XYZ Company _had told_ me
 ak>  those widgets should have been here by then.


            Uh-huh.  Now you are telling the story in the past tense, whereas I
 used the present tense... so you must use "had told" WRT what was said
earlier. I see you've grasped the idea I was trying to get across, and by using
 the word "that" as a subordinating conjunction you've left no doubt in
anybody's mind as to whether I was reporting directly or indirectly on what the
 XYZ Company said.

            The subordinating conjunction "that" may be... and often is... left
 out, however, particularly in colloquial speech.  As a Canadian I take pride
in the crisp efficiency of the English language when I see e.g. a cereal box
where it takes half again as much space to say the same thing in French.  OTOH,
 I see how people can get a bit too carried away with brevity sometimes.  If
you don't include the conjunction, some readers may incorrectly assume that all
 they have to do is put quotation marks around what I allegedly said to
duplicate it.  :-)



 AH>  She answers "I was expecting [my boyfriend] to meet me
 AH>  here tonight, but I think he must have forgotten."

 ak>  Quotation marks here - direct speech is detected again.


            Uh-huh.  The punctuation indicates what I'd do with my voice, in an
 oral conversation, to indicate that I'm reporting to the best of my ability
the exact words she used.  I'd drop the pitch & pause slightly after "she
answers". Years ago, when the general pace of life was slower, I'd have put a
comma after "she answers" as well.  That is what both Dallas & I were taught to
 do....  :-)



 ak>  Susie said "The moon is made of green cheese."
 ak>  but
 ak>  Susie said that the moon was made of green cheese.

 ak>  It is also correct, both sentences mean the same.


            On the surface of it, the second option has the same meaning.  Both
 verbs are in the past tense... that's how such things typically work & I
reckon that's what most people would say.  However, it could also be argued
that while Susie's opinion may have changed since I last heard from her the
composition of the moon probably hasn't.  The language is flexible enough to
allow you to say, e.g., that Susie said (that) the moon is made of green
cheese... or that Ardith has told readers in the E_T echo (that) the city where
 she currently resides is located in the southwestern corner of Canada. 
There's where the rule of common sense takes precedence IMHO over the
grammatical neatness of the textbook.  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)