I hear this all the time. People will say things like "I talked to the Police Chief and he said quote/unquote “We’re cracking down on crime.”
Why wouldn’t it be: Quote “we’re cracking down on crime” unquote.
Why is it acceptable in spoken English to say quote/unquote then follow-up with the quote. Surely this is wrong? Or is it?
I thought “quote/unquote” was used to express sarcasm and usually with individual words. Otherwise you’d just say “quote.”
I always thought it was quote/endquote. I think they’re just mangling it out of ignorance.
Maybe ‘quote/unquote’ as in he said generally this message.
I found this article somewhat enlightening, by John Lawler of UMich. It might be a helpful read?
No, you’re right, people who say that are dumb.
(IMO, of course)
When I here someone misuse this phrase I assume they are just ignorant and I automatically disregard everything they say. It’s right up there with the misuse of the phrase “It begs the question …”
There’s a show on NPR (Media Matters?) that uses the proper “quote” statement “Unquote” construction. and it is really annoying.
Yep. Helpful and entirely accurate. Good find.
As part of colloquial English quote/unquote is fine. Attempts to change it to the pedantic quote/endquote are silly and useless because pedanticism is the opposite of colloquial.
Back in the 70’s (give or take a decade) it was fairly popular where I worked for anything that was ersatz, phony, of questionable origin, or otherwise suspicious was a quote-whatever. Never was an end-quote or un-quote needed because it was a one-word or short phrase that was being “quoted.”
His quote-lunch was made up of quote-meat and quote-vegetables. A common way of putting things.
Whenever someone is actually trying to repeat as closely as they can some other verbatim statement, I’m siding with UncleRojelio unless I knew beforehand the speaker was poorly educated and actually had something meaningful to say, however poorly.
I am tempted to react the same way when people use ‘here’ to mean ‘hear.’ But of course, I tell myself that it’s not really a good way to live my life… you know, finding ways to dismiss people based on pedantry.
Crap
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. 
It’s a crutch for people who can’t do voices.
When I’m reading something out loud (my wife loves for me to read to her) I do all the quoted bits in different voices.
Here, here!