October 11, 2004

• Seen at the "fertilization" section of Ace Hardware to describe what kind of fertilizer was being sold, the sign read: "Cow" Manure Nice!
• "Yeah, I hate that"
• Ah ha! This is good for me to peruse - I am inordinately "fond" of using these damn things, and am probably "fucking up" while doing so :)
• Just last week there was a sign up in a store: "SALE" this "SATURDAY"!!! I didn't "go" to it.
• "Banana", rolypolyman?
• A friend of mine and I started doing this sort of thing all the time after we were in a grocery store and saw a sign that said: Get your "Free Recipes" here. Of course, not only the quote thing became a running joke, but "free recipes" became its own source of amusement.
• I'll take the contrarian position that these are not 'misused' quotation marks. Usage is fluid, inclusive, and forgiving. Your friendly green-grocer is not winking at you through his signs; he is merely highlighting aspects of his wares; he doesn't have time for snickering passers-by. Consider Wikipedia. To emphasize a phrase in the Wikipedia syntax, you surround it in a number of quotes — two for italics, three for bold, five for bold italics. As a long-time user of Wikipedia, I have internalised its syntax to the extent that it seems natural for me to indicate emphasis with quotation marks, which is hardly surprising as Wikipedia's syntax is little more than a codification of widespread practice. I argue that people who find these so-called abuses of quotation marks so horrible are the same people who think language has one all-overriding ideal — to adhere to the divine rules of grammar, passed from God to Moses on the mount, and through an unbreaking line straight to them.
• fuyugare, I think that you've made a point which is "interesting". You're obviously quite a "thinker". I really value your "contributions" to this site. I'm glad that "intelligent" people like yourself can give us the benefit of your erudite "opinions".
• "Thanks for the support."
• No problem, "buddy".
• There are other ways to highlight. If you have the capability, italics. If not, underline, surrounding by asterisks, using a different color, putting it in all caps, changing the font size, etc. None of these have a secondary meaning aside from emphasis. Now, I'm not as strict with my grammar as many. Its/It's doesn't bother me all that much, nor does your/you're, unless they're in a professional document of one sort or another, because I know what the meaning is and I know how easy it is to make that mistake when you're dictating to yourself. However, when I say something, I want it to mean what I intended, and using quotes around something changes the meaning from, "This is what the item is" to "This is what someone could say or has said the item is, and the item does not necessarily have to be that thing."
• You may pride yourself on saying exactly what you mean, but language is not a solitary art. 'Meaning' is negotiable. If A and B negotiate a contract that quotes indicate emphasis, then when A is fending off man-eating bear with one hand, a marauding robot with his other, and hanging from the cliff for dear life with his third, it is not only valid but prudent for him to say to B "'Help!'" instead of "Help!".
• Indeed, and he could scream out, "Tomato!" if his tone and inflection came across well enough to indicate the panic that would bring some help, or that they had agreed well before hand that Tomato was a call word for help. However, if there were a nearby tomato patch, then it's possible that any help would confused, either briefly or fatally, by the apparent contradiction in what is needed. Words and parts of speech obviously do multiple duty, especially in an unregulated language such as English. However, if someone wants to use a set of punctuation marks with multiple meanings, then there's no reason why people shouldn't enjoy the secondary meanings. I don't try to change the shopkeeper, or the three-handed man who can somehow shout out quotation marks, but I reserve the right to interpret it as it was said, and not just as it was meant. Especially, and this is important, if it's a funny interpretation. Incidentally, was that just a bad example, or were you "baiting me." I ask merely for information.
• 'Twas hardly "bait", m'dear. It was a dart aimed squarely at your claim of quotes "changing the meaning". There is no change. If you buy a "gourd" for two shekels, you get nothing different from a "'gourd'" you haggle down to a shekel and a half from the guy two shops down.
• I do, however, agree with you that any excuse is a good excuse to have a laugh.
• fuyugare, I agree with you on your views about language. It's not a set of rules, written in stone. It's a living creature that evolves daily. Language is dictated to the masses by lexigraphers. Lexigraphers just try to keep track of what the masses have done to the language. If 90% of English speakers continuously break a specific "rule" of English, then obviously that rule is no longer. One example is the rule that "you can't end a sentence with a preposition." The masses defy this rule all the time. Since it's up to them, if it's what they want, so be it. Language is a very democratic process. You've used language properly if when making a statement, everyone who heard it understood your statement perfectly and completely, regardless of the number of "rules" you broke. That being said, fuyugare, I disagree with you in this instance. The mass of the people don't put quotation marks into the term: "cow" manure, nor do the masses put quotation marks into any of these other instances. And when these instances happen, the masses fail to understand your exact intent. If you send me an email telling me that you'll meet me "monday" at the "front" of the school, I'll be sure you mean something different than meeting me monday at the front of the school.
• Just checking. However, "quoting" does change the meaning. In the case above, putting bait in quotes didn't change the meaning, because you were, indeed, quoting me. Similar with "changing the meaning." However, the gourd example is different, merely because gourd, in and of itself, needs no quotes. However, if you have something that isn't a gourd, or isn't exactly a gourd, but you're calling it a "gourd", then you put it in quotes. The quotes form an implication that the item isn't exactly what one expects from the word in quotation marks, but it's going to be called that, anyways. It's as if someone called it a gourd, but it's not really a gourd, so you're quoting a source calling it a gourd. Otherwise, the quotation marks would be redundant. Even if the user doesn't mean to imply with the quotation marks, it's not unreasonable for the reader to infer. The thing is, since punctuation and grammar are contracts, that means that your half of the meaning is not the only one that's valid. Whoever receives the meaning is also an equal partner in the transaction, so if there is a misinterpretation, it's to continue with the metaphor, a "breach of contract." Which is not a terrible thing, but it does mean that, if you're not careful, or if you're talking with someone who has significant enough differences in their understanding of grammar, then what you meant to say is not necessarily what is going to have been heard. Which, incidentally, is the point of the Quotation Marks museum. Same with Engrish.
• CRAP, I meant "Language isn't dictated to the masses by lexigraphers."
• I agree with all of your second paragraph, Sandspider, and all of Mr. K's analysis. The gourd example is meant to illustrate that your friendly grocer really does want to sell you an honest gourd. You are, of course, free to analyze the text "'gourd'" free of all intent, but your conclusion (viz. "a source calling it a gourd") can be wildly off the mark. Listen, I'll give it to you for one and a quarter shekels, but "no lower"!
• mumble lexicographer mumble...
• I hate to be a picky monkey, Mr. Knickerbocker, but that preposition rule has never been as solid as your junior high English teaher may have told you, and isn't in strong force now. I'd avoid putting a preposition at the end of a sentence in formal writing unless it bent the sentence too much. If it's a choice between breaking the rule and breaking the sentence, though, the rule loses every time. I find the overuse of quotation marks annoying because it violates my technical writer's instinct to keep instructions and informational writing (as opposed to literary writing) simple. I don't expect everyone's grammar to be perfect, especially unedited grammar, but it helps if you have some idea what the rules are before you try to break them. The violations of the quotation mark rules seem to arise from ignorance. I'm not sure that's true of many of the so-called violations of the preposition rule, or use of the word "their" as an ungendered singular pronoun in casual speech or writing. But that's my $0.02, and worth what you paid for it. (The link is cute but makes my inner grammar monkey want to fling "the brown and stinky". Can you tell?)
• Lot of gourds in this thread. Empty vessel, fill in rest.
• Thanks for the link, immlass. It backs up the point I was making: Users of a language determine the rules of it, not some dickwad in a powdered wig.
• *takes off wig*
• You "cunt". *hits the "sack"*
• Don't make me misuse your quotation, mark.
• "right" "on", "ricknunq". "I"'ll "sleep" on "that". ("Allegedly.")
• """""""""""" /woodstock (sweet dreams!)
• Night, mate. Hope your medical stuff went well. *snoring, followed by early rising*
• /is he asleep yet?
• [this is "good"] I plan on reading all of these posts aloud, making little "quote marks" with my fingers as I do so.
• Ah, no better way to start a week than with a discussion on the philosophical underpinnings of grammar. Good times.
• No problem, Mr. K. I agree with your point in general, but mine is that the guys in powdered wigs didn't really make those rules and didn't abide by them. They're all lies your English teacher told you.
• My English teacher never "told" me any of these "lies". (She also gave reading assignments from Fowler, the bestest prescriptivists EVER!!)
• s
• Good post and fun discussion here, bananas all around. I am usually sympathetic to fuyugare's argument that language is a thing in motion, evolving as we go. But part of that dynamic has to be the grammar police, calling "stop!" to discourage usages that cause more confusion than clarity, as with misused quotation marks. Italics, bold, underlining, and even, God forgive us, exclamation marks or all caps are better for emphasis than quotation marks. But all of these are poor excuses for a well-constructed sentence. I spend several hours each week threatening undergraduates with bodily harm if any of these awkward devices appear in their papers.
• Yeah, this is good and all, but could someone please direct me to the nearest "," link. I desperately need help with my ",'s". Thank you.
• This post clears up so much for me! Not a frequent Wikipedia user, see, I had never even heard of the concept of using quotes for emphasis. So these misquoted store signs, etc, always completely baffled me. Now that I understand what the writers seem to be going for, at least some of them make more sense. :P
• Suck talked about this phenomenon in their article on "scare quotes."
• Us and them, us and them. They misuse their quotation marks, don't you know?
• Hi "Nick"! How's "it" going? Any "trouble" with "them" lately?
• My favourite example of this phenomenon are the local brothels and strip clubs that promise me "attractive" ladies. Really? Perhaps I'll given them a miss, then...
• "1N Ð3£1µ3r1n9 m¥ $0nn3 ƒr0m m3, 1 bµr13 4 $3(0nÐ hµ$b4nÐ."
• for grammarians to construe or fools to sling poo words are for people to do with as they will for people words are tools to complement or scar to be stiffly formal or more playful for politicians to string deceitfully for advocates to enter pleas equally for the rich and for the poor so when this one says "cow" manure another may say "bull"
• So basically quotation marks are replacing the use of the subjunctive?
• The subjunctive? How? I don't think so. Were you to illustrate with an example, I might see what you're getting at... The subjunctive is certainly dying, but from different wounds — the affixion of "may" ("May thy wishes come true"), the growing popularity of the simple possibility-conditional ("It I was King", "I wish I was young, single, and happy"), and the co-option into formulas ("Come what may", "Far be it from me to wear green socks"), and the practical impossibility in PDE to introduce the apodosis in the past-subjunctive:

  Were I hard-favour'd, foul, or wrinkled-old, Ill-nurtured, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice, O'erworn, despised, rheumatic and cold, Thick-sighted, barren, lean and lacking juice, Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee.

• There's one too many 'and's in there. Preview be damned.
• God save the queen God save our gracious Queen God save the Queen. Send her victorious Happy and glorious Long to reign over us God save the Queen. -- Now that's the subjunctive.
• OK, I think I FINALLY *understand* "emphasis".
• Wolof: that's subjunctive? I'm dim, and suspect it's a joke which escapes me. If you were of a mind to enlighten me, I would be ever so grateful. Your faithful servant, Dame path of the propodes.
• Commas, people, I need help with comma's.
• path: yes, that is the subjunctive.
• It's not a joke, path. In this case, it's expressing the desire that God protect the Queen. Other common subjunctives: "long live .......", "Be that as it may", "Heaven forbid", "So be it". Basically, the subjunctive is used to talk about events which aren't certain to happen -- events we hope will happen, or imagine might happen, or want to happen. There's another form of it, calles the jussive subjunctive, that follows a command: "It is imperative that a meeting be held", "It is important that every member send their subscription", etc. I'm sure there's an English teacher in the room who can improve on this. *previews for once* Yes, should have just gone to the Wiki.
• if you were my girl if I were your guy and if you were to sit your sweet self by my side... :)
• Beware of the "Unbeatable?" Pterodactyl!! Do the quotation marks cancel out the question mark?
• Kids... everybody makes mis-
• Thanks Wolof. If the dark recesses of my brain, it seemed more like imperative.
• And now, "you, too" can enjoy this in blog form.