Q: How can I search for quotes in NIV etc?

I want to be able to search, for example, the book of John in my NIV Bible, to find all times where something is written in quotes.

[ In some computer languages, a quote can be doubled "" or escaped (\") to use in a string, which might then be all included in quotes. In this case, I want a quote to be the target for my search. ]

Can Logos search for quotes?

The example below is harder. Its got single-quotes nested inside double-quotes. But even finding verses with a double-quote will do for what I want.

I know Logos has all kinds of "special" formatting for searches, such as ([field bible] <lemma = lbs/el/λόγος>), so is there some way to find quotes, or question marks, and such like?

[ Above quote from NIV ]

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Comments

Dave Hooton

Can Logos search for quotes?

No!

Logos has a word based search engine. It cannot search for punctuation marks.

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/124789#Comment_124789

One way to get around this limitation might be to look for statements in direct address....

JimTowler

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/124888#Comment_124888

... look for statements in direct address....

Robert,

I'm interested in whatever hint you are attempting to help me with here, but I don't understand what you mean. If you would, please give an example or some additional information.

Thanks.

Kevin Becker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/124901#Comment_124901

... look for statements in direct address....

Robert,

I'm interested in whatever hint you are attempting to help me with here, but I don't understand what you mean. If you would, please give an example or some additional information.

Thanks.

I think Robert is suggesting searching for words like [said, replied, spoke etc]. Direct speech would usually be proximate to these words.

In the NT reverse interlinears you could do something like this lemma:ὅτι NOTEQUALS (because, that, for)

JimTowler

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/124905#Comment_124905

Kevin,

Thanks. I was unsure what was being hinted at.

Yes, I guess I cold build up a list of words that would most tend to point towards speech or sayings. It would be easier if I could search for the actual symbols, and types of field tagging, but seems we can't do that.

I know I could export large amounts of whatever book I wanted to work on, into Word or something, and search there, but there are a number of reasons I don't want to do it that way. Including copyright concerns.

Of course, quotes marks, commas, Red Letter etc is NOT part of the original works, but it does say a lot about how its been understood by others, or how the translator teams have decided.

Thanks.

Fred Chapman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/124916#Comment_124916

JIm,

I did a quick search for all clauses that include the words "said or "replied" and searched John's Gospel. It returned 257 hits. What I found was it logically did not catch extended addresses that may still be part of the quote; it only catches those clauses that include the words I specify. The good news is it did seem to catch a large number of complete quotes and did seem (I just took a quick look at the results) to catch the beginning of each address.

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/124918#Comment_124918

What I was referring to was a verbs /vocative case but then I realized...you meant ANY quotes...not direct address/2nd person statements.

My mistake.

JimTowler

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/124922#Comment_124922

My mistake.

No, not a mistake. Your search for verbs of specific cases etc will be useful. It had not occured to me to think in terms of the Greek and morph codes, rather than limit any searching in the English text. I used one of the complex search format strings at the top, in the hope it might trigger someones memory of some obscure way of forming a cryptic search. As I have written in some other posts elsewhere, it would be nice if Logos would let us have "power tools" for the times when someone needs them, even if they are hard to use or slow to run. If at least there is a way, those that need it can get the job done. Not all things need a nice UI. Some codes we can type in a box somewhere is fine by me, if mostly noone will ever want to do it.

The real problem for me here: my reason for wanting to find quotes changes from time to time. Sometimes I am looking to see if one version thinks the Red Letter words-of-Christ start or end in different places. Other times, I'm interested in where the NT is quoting the OT. Or maybe Paul is quoting Jesus. etc.

Each different kind of thing needs different methods, so the range of suggestions you all have offered here is helpful. Thanks.

[ I still think it would be nice if we could directly search for quotes, question marks, alternative fields, Pericope headings, and all kinds of metadata. Seems in the past, mostly Logos was only strings of basic text. But now we can search for highlight tags, and all kinds of new things. Who knows what might get added in time ... ]

JimTowler

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/124918#Comment_124918

JIm, I did a quick search for all clauses that ...

Thanks Fred, I will repeat your methods too. I think Logos4 is new enough for me, that I'm still playing-with-all-the-toys, and finding out what works, and what kinds of things I can now do, that was too hard or impossible before. I am learning much, but its taking many hours. I don't remember who said it, or where it was, but it was something like: "I don't find answers. Just deeper questions!" If its someone here on the forums, ops. Well, thats a real problem with Logos Bible Software. Its easy to learn 5 things, and discover 20 questions of things you don't yet know. It was easier when I did not know how much I never knew ...