5 ms·
Since I moved to Missouri, I've been upset by a similar grammatical error: quotation marks used for emphasis. You would expect, say, all-capitals or an underlin
by drostie 12y ago
Since I moved to Missouri, I've been upset by a similar grammatical error: quotation marks used for emphasis. You would expect, say, all-capitals or an underline or italics, but you instead see 'Come taste the "best" burger in Missouri,' which is awful.
In New York, where I grew up, that use of quotation marks is called "scare quotes": quotation marks in all cases signal that you're detaching a text fragment from its context; with scare quotes you detach a phrase which reads just fine in that context to either bring focus to the phrase (like when you're defining it) or to indicate that the phrase itself is somehow problematic (like when you want to criticize the phrase, e.g. 'these "businessmen" are stealing our money,' where you're implying that they are either not truly men or not truly doing business per se.)
When you say that you have 'the "best" burger', to me it sounds like you're implicitly adding at the end, 'well, at least, it's the best at being an awful burger.'
- jarin 12y agohttp://www.unnecessaryquotes.com http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com
- sciurus 12y agoYou can see a collection of these at http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/ http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/ The auther started the blog while at the University of Georgia, so the problem isn't confined to Missouri.
- panglott 12y agoThis is a common practice in signs. It's wrong in literary English, but is it wrong in signs? My pet theory is that quotes for emphasis were popularized in 20th century movie posters, where it was common to surround the movie title in quotations (this is still the accepted citation style in, say MLA style). This is probably wrong, of course. Italics or bold for emphasis can be hard to hand-write, and the quotation marks for emphasis probably look more legible on chalk signs.