Saturday, March 21, 2009

The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks still thrives

Enjoy it here.

I am reminded of an observation from David Cook's novel Second Best:
What did I suppose "good parents" were like? The woman mimed quotation marks by lifting both arms into the air and twiddling her fingers. This was something I would later notice social workers doing frequently.
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5 comments:

  1. dreamingspire21 March, 2009 11:53

    For emphasis, young man.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jonathan Calder21 March, 2009 12:55

    I would rather buy

    Fresh Fish

    than

    "Fresh" Fish

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous21 March, 2009 13:13

    Must send this blog a picture of the Indian restaurant near work which has a poster in the window proudly summarising the results of its "independent" customer survey...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tristan21 March, 2009 16:40

    The BBC news website is the worst offender for this. So many headlines have needless quotation marks.

    ReplyDelete
  5. HE Elsom21 March, 2009 21:42

    Tristan: news services are supposed to flag anything that comes directly from a source and hasn't been verified completely, or expresses an opinion rather than a fact. (That's why German newspapers are so full of subjunctives.) The BBC web site does it correctly; the problem is more that the actual headlines can be sloppy. Contrast the UK tabloids and local papers, which often leave out quotation marks in headlines and look like campaign leaflets as a result.

    I also object to Self-Important Capitals, which don't affect the meaning of text so much but at best make the writer look like Winnie the Pooh and at worst make the text much harder to read.

    ReplyDelete