{"id":8222,"date":"2014-01-02T14:08:44","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T14:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/01\/02\/spare-not-the-scare-quotation-marks\/"},"modified":"2014-01-02T14:08:44","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T14:08:44","slug":"spare-not-the-scare-quotation-marks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/01\/02\/spare-not-the-scare-quotation-marks\/","title":{"rendered":"Spare Not the ‘Scare’ ‘Quotation’ Marks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is part of a sentence I  encountered in an article on mid-life suicide: "When Liz Strand\u2019s 53-year-old friend killed herself two years ago in California, her house was underwater and needed repairs, she had a painful ankle that was exacerbated by being overweight . . ."<\/span><\/p>\n

But if one's house were underwater, one could just swim from room to room.  How then could being overweight exacerbate ankle pain?<\/span><\/p>\n

A house fit for normal human habitation cannot be literally underwater.  But it can be 'underwater,' i.e., such that the mortgagee owes more to the mortgager than the house is worth.<\/span><\/p>\n

The omission of necessary 'quotation' marks is the opposite of that sure-fire indicator of low social class, namely, the addition of unnecessary 'quotation' marks.  See The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of my conventions:<\/span><\/p>\n

1. When I am quoting someone I employ double quotation marks.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. When I am mentioning an expression, I never use double quotation marks, I use single 'quotation' marks, e.g., I write: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

'Boston' is disyllabic.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Suppose Ed Koch (1924-2013)<\/a> had said, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Boston is a 'city.'<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The marks signify a semantic stretch unto a sneer.  This is not a case of mentioning the word 'city,' but of using it, but in a extended sense.  Had old Koch said that, he would have been suggesting that Boston is a city in a merely analogical or even equivocal sense of the term as compared to the<\/em> city, New York City.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. So the third use of single 'quotation' marks is the semantically stretching use.  The sentence I just wrote illustrates it inasmuch as this use of 'quotation' marks does not involve quotation, nor does it involve mentioning a word as opposed to using it.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a much trickier topic than you might think, and I can go on.  You hope I won't, and in any case I don't feel like it.  But I can't resist a bit of commentary on this example from the blog cited above:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Business\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

This might just be an example of a misuse of 'quotation' marks.  But it could be a legitimate use, an example of #3 above.  They want your excrement<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, italicize, or bold, or underline it.  Don't surround it with 'quotation' marks.  Or, like Achmed the Dead Terrorist<\/a>, I kill you!<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/span><\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Bogus Camus Quotation<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Ed Koch (1924-2013)<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>An Apology to the Shade of William Safire<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Worst Of Unnecessary Quotation Marks<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is part of a sentence I  encountered in an article on mid-life suicide: "When Liz Strand\u2019s 53-year-old friend killed herself two years ago in California, her house was underwater and needed repairs, she had a painful ankle that was exacerbated by being overweight . . ." But if one's house were underwater, one could … Continue reading “Spare Not the ‘Scare’ ‘Quotation’ Marks”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-language-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}