You’ve seen them. I know you have.
At the grocer’s, when there’s a sign announcing that broccoli is on “special.” On an internet message board, when a contributor notes that “such is my ‘opinion,’ whether others agree or not.”
They’re quotation marks, and they’re almost as widely misused as are apostrophes. When placed around a word or phrase as in these examples, they’re called “scare quotes” … and, man, are they scary! The use of the term seems to date from the first half of the 20th century. Occurrence of the term in academic literature appears as early as the 1950s.
Wikipedia to the rescue: “Writers use scare quotes for a variety of reasons. When the enclosed text is a quotation from another source, scare quotes may indicate that the writer does not accept the usage of the phrase (or the phrase itself), that the writer feels its use is potentially ironic, or that the writer feels it is a misnomer. This meaning may serve to distance the writer from the quoted content.
“If scare quotes are enclosing a word or phrase that does not represent a quotation from another source they may simply serve to alert the reader that the word or phrase is used in an unusual, special, or non-standard way or should be understood to include caveats to the conventional meaning.
“Alternatively, material in scare quotes may represent the writer’s concise (but possibly misleading) paraphrasing, characterization, or intentional misrepresentation of statements, concepts, or terms used by a third party. This may be an expression of sarcasm or incredulity, or it may also represent a rhetorical attempt to frame a discussion in the writer’s desired (non-standard) terms (e.g. a circumlocution, an apophasis, or an innuendo).”
I’m not going to say that they are not sometimes appropriate, because there are many excellent uses for scare quotes, many of them noted in this article:
- a term used only by a limited number of persons: Linguists sometimes employ a technique they call “inverted reconstruction.”
- a way to express disapproval: The Institute for Personal Knowledge is now offering a course in “self-awareness exercises.”
- a way to show that what is being stated is not, in fact, necessarily true: The Serbs are closing in on the “safe haven” of Gorade.
- a means to indicate a euphemism: Sharon Stone made dozens of “adult films” before getting her Hollywood break.
I have no quarrel with these usages of scare quotes. After all, one can hardly misuse something unless there is, on the other side, a correct way to use it!
But as the wonderful “blog” of “unnecessary quotation marks” is constantly noting, there is a plethora of examples of misuse. Check them out: I guarantee you’ll enjoy them!
A few choice examples:
- Grab a “drink” and get a “snack” on the house!
- Turn off your “cell phone”!
- Great “hot” food!
- We are “open”!
The list goes on and on (to my not-so-secret delight). Do you have examples you’ve seen recently of the misuse of scare quotes? Share them here! Please! And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
