# Do other "languages" use "scare quotes"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 18, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653 "2013-02-18T01:52:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/1 "2013-02-18T01:52:12Z")
Scare quotes are one of my favorite things about writing (and sometimes even used when speaking). They can lend many different nuanced meanings to various, otherwise mundane words. I had a good time in the meeting yesterday. \<---- ok, that’s cool I had a good time in the “meeting” yesterday. \<---- debaucherous! I had a “good” time in the meeting yesterday. \<----sounds like you didn’t have a good time at all. Do other languages have an equivalent of “scare quotes?” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/2 "2013-02-18T01:55:16Z")
I can’t answer your question but I will acknowledge I never knew they had a name before now. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/3 "2013-02-18T02:00:01Z")
I never knew scare quotes were their official name either, but that’s what some style guides call them and wikipedia has an article on them. I can’t find any info on them being in other languages though. ---
**Author:** ![JpnDude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@JpnDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JpnDude)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/4 "2013-02-18T02:05:19Z")
When foreign-language films have Japanese subtitles, small dots are often placed above the Japanese characters of the nuanced phrase. I’ve also seen it in local manga comics. For example: That ball player has a really big “bat”! 　　　　　　　　　　　　. .　　　 あの選手は大きなバットあるよ！ ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/5 "2013-02-18T02:12:09Z")
Thanks JpnDude! So it definitely exists, at least unofficially in Japanese. Do you have any idea what those dots would be called (like in English we call them scare quotes)? (also, you get extra bonus internet points for your wonderful example of scare quotes. That’s a perfect usage!) ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/6 "2013-02-18T02:29:42Z")
> [@JpnDude](#): > > When foreign-language films have Japanese subtitles, small dots are often placed above the Japanese characters of the nuanced phrase. I’ve also seen it in local manga comics. For example: > > That ball player has a really big “bat”! > 　　　　　　　　　　　　. .　　　 > あの選手は大きなバットあるよ！ Are the dots supposed to go over よ and ！? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/7 "2013-02-18T03:27:46Z")
In Spain quotemarks are sometimes used to mean (sic), to mean “I’m using this word because it’s the word I’m supposed to use or the word every official document uses although if you ask me it’s not the right one”. Verbally the same words get rolleyed. For example, _ya les vale con las “comisiones”_ - “they really need to stop taking and giving “commissions”” (the correct word would be _sobornos_, “bribes”). Note that the quotes-for-sic usage is perfectly valid when quoting someone who used the wrong word, the wrong spelling or an antiquated spelling, you’d only put an actual _(literal)_ or _(lit.)_ if you think people will otherwise not realize the strange thing in your quote comes with the quote. But in this case, if you did it verbally you wouldn’t roll your eyes. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/8 "2013-02-18T03:48:16Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > In Spain quotemarks are sometimes used to mean (sic), to mean “I’m using this word because it’s the word I’m supposed to use or the word every official document uses although if you ask me it’s not the right one”. Verbally the same words get rolleyed. For example, _ya les vale con las “comisiones”_ - “they really need to stop taking and giving “commissions”” (the correct word would be _sobornos_, “bribes”). > > Note that the quotes-for-sic usage is perfectly valid when quoting someone who used the wrong word, the wrong spelling or an antiquated spelling, you’d only put an actual _(literal)_ or _(lit.)_ if you think people will otherwise not realize the strange thing in your quote comes with the quote. But in this case, if you did it verbally you wouldn’t roll your eyes. That same exact usage is how scare quotes got started in English, if the wikipedia article is to be believed. People would put quotes around a word they were literally quoting from someone else when they disagreed with their usage of the word and wanted to subtly imply it wasn’t really the right word. I like your example of comisiones. It’s pretty much exactly like that in certain English uses. Now, more importantly, is there a special word for when quotes are used that way, as in English we have the term scare quotes? ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/9 "2013-02-18T05:35:55Z")
> [@JpnDude](#): > > When foreign-language films have Japanese subtitles, small dots are often placed above the Japanese characters of the nuanced phrase. I’ve also seen it in local manga comics. For example: > > That ball player has a really big “bat”! > 　　　　　　　　　　　　. .　　　 > あの選手は大きなバットあるよ！ > [@Reply](#): > > Are the dots supposed to go over よ and ！? I don’t want to speak for \*\*JpnDude \*\*as I have never used dots above a word to express a euphemism, but I don’t think it would go above ‘yo’ (よ), as ‘yo’ is used as emphasis for the entire phrase. If it were me, I’d place the dots above the word ‘bat’ instead of ‘have’ but perhaps there was an alignment issue when \*\*JpnDude \*\* placed the dots. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/10 "2013-02-18T09:00:21Z")
Scare quotes are used in German much the same way they are used in English and Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/11 "2013-02-18T11:13:22Z")
I think in French they call them “guillemets ironiques”. They’re used in Dutch, often signalled with fingers in the air in speech, but they’re just called “aanhalingstekens”, there is no specific word for the “scare” part. AFAIK. But you would actually say “tussen aanhalingstekens” (lit. “between quotation marks”) to emphasise your disagreement with the use of the word, or the irony or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/12 "2013-02-18T12:47:24Z")
> [@gracer](#): > > They’re used in Dutch, often signalled with fingers in the air in speech, but they’re just called “aanhalingstekens”, there is no specific word for the “scare” part. AFAIK. But you would actually say “tussen aanhalingstekens” (lit. “between quotation marks”) to emphasise your disagreement with the use of the word, or the irony or whatever. This is pretty much identical in Afrikaans. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/13 "2013-02-18T12:50:35Z")
> [@JpnDude](#): > > That ball player has a really big “bat”! > 　　　　　　　　　　　　. .　　　 > あの選手は大きなバットあるよ！ > [@Reply](#): > > Are the dots supposed to go over よ and ！? I think **Reply** is assuming that Japanese has the same word order as English, i.e., that, because “bat” comes at the end in English, the word meaning “bat” comes at the end in Japanese. (He also may be assuming that in Japanese there is one character per word). It doesn’t come at the end: as is typical in Japanese, the sentence ends with a verb ある and a particle よ. The word meaning “bat” is バット – derived from English (pronounced “batto”), and written with three characters/ ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/14 "2013-02-18T13:09:48Z")
> [@gracer](#): > > They’re used in Dutch, often signalled with fingers in the air in speech This would be “[air quotes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_quotes),” as seen [here](http://thumbnails.hulu.com/5/394/12985_512x288_manicured__5n1k8wxKx06mzRnudhmCXQ.jpg) done by the Chris Farley SNL character Bennett Brower. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/15 "2013-02-18T14:57:42Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I think **Reply** is assuming that Japanese has the same word order as English, i.e., that, because “bat” comes at the end in English, the word meaning “bat” comes at the end in Japanese. (He also may be assuming that in Japanese there is one character per word). It doesn’t come at the end: as is typical in Japanese, the sentence ends with a verb ある and a particle よ. The word meaning “bat” is バット – derived from English (pronounced “batto”), and written with three characters/ Turns out it was just a browser formatting issue. It shows up right on Firefox but not on Chrome, which puts the two dots at the end and over the exclamation mark. That seemed strange to me, so I just wanted to double-check. Glad I asked. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/16 "2013-02-18T22:09:10Z")
Thanks all for the info. Glad that these quotes get used in other languages. They are just so useful and fun! ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/17 "2013-02-19T00:13:34Z")
> [@gracer](#): > > I think in French they call them “guillemets ironiques”. > > They’re used in Dutch, often signalled with fingers in the air in speech, but they’re just called “aanhalingstekens”, there is no specific word for the “scare” part. AFAIK. But you would actually say “tussen aanhalingstekens” (lit. “between quotation marks”) to emphasise your disagreement with the use of the word, or the irony or whatever. Spanish grammarians do sometimes use the term “comillas irónicas” to refer to this usage. And at least in my local usage of Spanish, the equivalent to English verbal usage “cuote-unquote [blank]” or hand-signaled air-quotes, may as in Dutch be signified verbally by saying “entre comillas” before or after the phrase you want to doubt, but not that commonly – more common in verbal communication is to add some other that’s-what-he-calls-it marker to the word being related, as in \*Los diz que valores del senador \*- _The Senator’s so-called Values_. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/18 "2013-02-19T02:33:00Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Turns out it was just a browser formatting issue. It shows up right on Firefox but not on Chrome, which puts the two dots at the end and over the exclamation mark. That seemed strange to me, so I just wanted to double-check. Glad I asked. Yup, I’m on Chrome on Windows and can confirm the dots are over the よ！I was rather confused. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/19 "2013-02-19T04:29:20Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Now, more importantly, is there a special word for when quotes are used that way, as in English we have the term scare quotes? _(Comillas) Literales_ for the literal usage; _comillas irónicas_, _comillas de ironía_, _comillas sarcásticas_ or \*de sarcasmo \*when used to indicate irony or sarcasm, as \*\*JRDelirious \*\*said. I doubt most people would remember the names, though: I think they were explained once in about ten years of Spanish Grammar and Lit classes. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653/20 "2013-02-19T04:36:15Z")
The use of _entre comillas_ or _entrecomillado_, verbally, is found all over from what I can tell. I’ve encountered it from Chile to Andorra. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-scare-quotes/650653.md?page=2)