My sister just used quotation marks as emphasis in an email. I am shocked and saddened. She has a masters’ degree in education. It’s not like she typoed ‘teh’ for ‘the’, she’s jumped directly to the nasty stuff. She’s only in her early 30’s… she’s way too young for this.
Oh! I’ve never noticed this much. I would read it as exactly opposite of what was intended, I suppose–i.e., Local Politician Photographed in Motel with “Wife.” Which I’m sure is exactly your point. Ignorance fought, much appreciated, carry on!
Send her the links Cosmic Relief just provided with the explanation “I’d hate for someone to laugh at you because of this.” Explain that grown-ups use (in decreasing order of preference) italic, underlining, bold, or in a plaintext environment asterisks for emphasis.
Then laugh your ass off at her the next time she does it with the explanation “I warned you this could happen.”
Every time I see quotation marks as emphasis, I feel the overwhelming “urge” to “beat” the author in the “face,” and by “beat” I mean “punch,” by “face” I mean “crotch,” and by “urge” I mean “urge.”
Were it me, I’d respond with a little something like this:
But then, I tend to be a sarcastic asshole sometimes, so YMMV.
Okay, now you’re just confusing me. I can’t figure out if there are supposed to be quotation marks in there or not because the context this thread has taken on makes everything ambiguous. YOU BROKE ENGLISH.
So when is it appropriate to use quotes? I would use quotes on something like “family values”, only because the term is ambiguous, and I want the reader to know that what I’m saying may not be what you think it means, and that it is open to interpretation.
Oh, absolutely. That’s an appropriate place. The problem with the OP’s sister is that she’s using quotation marks as a substitute for underlining, bolding, italics, even asterisks which are a common method of indicating emphasis. It makes one read the E-mail as if the quote-enclosed words are intended sarcastically or otherwise with questioning about what the word actually means. It’s like looking at a seafood market that has a sign proclaiming:
or a restaurant’s menu reading as:
You wonder exactly how fresh the fish is, or how special those dishes really are!
I find that a shovel to the back of the unsuspecting victim’s head is a good deterrent for any future misbehaviour. This sort of misuse of quotation marks is well within the range of crimes against humanity that merit such a response, IMO.
I used to work at a clinic and we would receive refill requests from pharmacies. The faxes that were sent to us would have the instructions on them for the docs to verify. There was one pharmacy (I can’t even remember which) that always put the patient’s name in quotes.
Give “Jennifer” 1 tab every morning. After 5 days, give “Jennifer” 2 tabs every morning. Why put the name in quotes? It’s her real name! If you want to say give “Jenny” 1 tab every morning, that’s understandable. It says her full name at the top of the script, we know Jennifer is the patient, it doesn’t need to be exaggerated with unnecessary quotation marks.
Hmm…I seem to have gotten a little irritated while I was “typing” this post.
ETA: Oh, I don’t consider the pharmacy a loved one, but they are usually quite nice.
My mother does this. When asked why, she said because she likes how it looks. After pointing out how it’s perceived (because she does it with my name and it makes it look like she’s saying I’m not really me), she just laughed it off. It was then suggested that there are other things used for emphasis, like asterisks, she responded that she doesn’t like those as well. At that point, there ain’t much else to do but shrug and move on.