I get cards from my grandmother signed love “Nana”. It’s like she’s in the witness protection program.
Kitten’s" “vomit” for sale two “good” home.
I reeeeally shouldn’t have opened this thread. This is definitely one of my pet peeves, because even when I’m silently reading signs with misused quotes I find myself forced to “stop” and “emphasize” each “quoted” word. It pisses me off to no end.
I have a headache now…
Oh, yes, yes YES! Ubiquitous Quote Marks are my absolute number one Grammar Nazi Horror. Nothing says “semi-literate” quite like “quoting” all the “words” that you want to "emphasise.
Now, does anyone want to know what my number one Spelling Nazi Horror is?
Well I’m going to tell you anyway.
Deity, people, DEITY!
D - E - I - T - Y
I don’t know what a “diety” is - maybe the Weight Watchers’ equivalent of AA’s “Higher Power”.
Oh, and it appears to be a word in Polish as well. But I don’t speak Polish so I STILL don’t know what it means.
I’ve only ever seen this on the SDMB but it appears to be SO common here I’m starting to suspect some people think it’s correct. No, no, no, no, NO!
Don’t make me come over there and smite you.
Isn’t that just a handwriting variation of the “&” character?
I think it’s kinda cute.
All this crap drives me crazy. My mother used to say I should be a proof-reader when I grew up (I do homeschool two kids, so I sort of am). However, I am aware that the cleverest people who did the best at school don’t work at Denny’s, or make yard-sale signs, so I can sort of forgive this (still makes me shiver, though). What really burns me is when something is misspelled in a book in such a way that you can tell the misspelling was not intentional, just no one in editing caught it. For instance, reading a book recently called “Rules Of Parenting” (good book, too, but for the hard liberal bent and this one spelling error), that said "undo force should never be used. . . " WTF? UNDO force? do they mean force which cannot be undone? No, I’m reasonably certain they meant “undue” force, but no one seemed to realize that the wrong word was used. Were the editors asleep, or have they just gotten so reliant on spell-check that they can’t think for themselves?
The all-time classic misuse of quotation marks:
"Manos" The Hands Of Fate
I think we should start using << >> like Russian and some other languages.
<<Are you going to eat the rest of that?>> asked Fred <<Rerun>> Berry. <<I haven’t been this hungry since I saw <Big Night>>>.
Actually, it’s kind of fun to write out the andpercand (or whatever it’s called.) It’s surprisingly like writing the treble clef! 
I have too much time on my hands.
The sign on the window where Ginger works:
SMILE! Your on camera!
Drives me Fuckin’ nuts! I didn’t even know I had an “on camera” or why it should make me smile.
(BTW, people, it’s “We-irddave”. You don’t wanna know how many times I get called “Wi-erddave”.)
er… yeah, they do. Because they use actual quotations, from actual people. As in:
Joe’s Bar and Grill was rated as “good, if you like road tar sandwiches” and also “the best restaurant that serves Armadillo in greater Illinois.” “Trendy” yet “tacky”.
I was under the impression that the quoted bits were, in actuality, quotes from people. Thus, the use of quotation marks is correct.
This is the one.
I can’t remember the last time I read a book that didn’t have several errors of the type that a spell-check program wouldn’t catch. I don’t think people actually proofread manuscripts anymore.
And as a bonus personal peeve, I know it’s not wrong but I can’t stand cannot. You don’t write shouldnot, wouldnot or arenot after all.
Check the “Yellow Pages” in the pbone book, plenty of ads with whimsical and inexplicable quote marks. Enough there to make one’s head “spin”.
God, how I hate this phenomenon!
I see it a lot on warning signs, for example, on my local bus system:
“WARNING”
Your voice and image may be recorded.
I want to know what fucking genius thought this up. I mean, quotes are used often enough that NO ONE has an excuse for something this stupid. Ugh. I’m gonna go ahead and leave now before I get too worked up.
Thru is an informal variant for through. Perfectly acceptable, and efficient to boot. Gotta love it!
According to my handy little English/Polish dictionary(what, doesn’t EVERYBODY have one?) it would appear to mean “travel expenses.”
It would also seem to be related to the german word “diät,” which is what politicians get paid. It is not a salary. The concept is more like an expense allowance to defray the additional costs incurred in administrating the country (in addition to whatever else it is you do with your life, never mind that politicians are full time these days.)
Also, writing all the letters capital except for the ells.
e.g., HOlIDAY lIGHTS ON SAlE
Why is the ell so difficult to capitalize??
Only if the 3 is flipped to look like a curly sort of E.
I think “air quotes” are the worst. Doesn’t it make you want to reach out and bend those quotes back until they snap? It would be the perfect distaction from whatever pointless point being made.
So what you’re telling me here is that whever someone refers to their ‘diety’ I can assume they’re talking about Aedona-Pecunia , the siamese-twinned goddess of journeys and cash?
Spot on! The ‘y’ ending on ‘diety’ makes it plural, so that fits in perfectly with the siamese twin angle.
I love it.
Maybe they meant to use the “*” which is the cyber-equivalent of the italicized font (or the antiquated underline) to indicate emphasis.
I don’t think so.
vs.
I don’t think so.
which translates as:
I don’t think so.
Just a thought.