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.
[Quote=John Lawler]
Besides, it sounds insufferably pedantic to insist on quote word unquote…
[/Quote]
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!