reported speech - Who shall I say called?

[Jennie.z]

A head nurse in the hospital received a call: "could you tell me the condition of Mr. Smith in room 405. He was operated upon last week and I would like to know how he is."
The nurse checked the record and the chart and replied, "His condition is excellent and he seems to be making a steady improvement. Who shall I say called?."
The voice replied: "This is Mr. Smith in room 405. My doctors don't tell me a thing!"


"His condition is excellent and he seems to be making a steady improvement. Who shall I say called?."
Is it correct if I report the sentence above as follows?
The nurse replied his condition was excellent and that he seemed to be making a steady improvement. Then she wondered who called.

 

[emsr2d2]

A head nurse in the hospital received a call: "Could you tell me the condition of Mr. Smith in room 405? He [STRIKE]was operated upon[/STRIKE] had an operation last week and I would like to know how he is."
The nurse checked the record and the chart and replied, "His condition is excellent and he seems to be making a steady improvement. Who shall I say called?" (Don't put a full stop after a question mark.)
The voice replied: "This is Mr. Smith in room 405. My doctors don't tell me a thing!"


"His condition is excellent and he seems to be making a steady improvement. Who shall I say called?" (Don't put a full stop after a question mark.)
Is it correct if I report the sentences above as follows?
The nurse replied that his condition was excellent and [that] he seemed to be making a steady improvement. Then she [STRIKE]wondered[/STRIKE] asked who [STRIKE]called[/STRIKE] was calling.

See above.

 

[teechar]

No, that doesn't work. "Reply" is an intransitive verb. Try again and post below.

 

[emsr2d2]

Jennie.z, please don't post the same question twice. You are relatively new here so your first few posts will go into moderation and have to be cleared by a moderator before they're visible. That's why there might some delay between your posting a question and it appearing on the forum. Be patient.

I merged your two threads - that's why the same post appears twice at the top of this thread.

 

[emsr2d2]

Also, do you understand that these sentences are actually a joke?

I'm not sure why the post no longer appears twice at the top of this thread (it did when I merged the two threads) but I think the second post started with something like "There is a joke which says ...", so I think Jennie.z is aware of that. I could be wrong!