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3quarksdaily

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September 29, 2007

The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks

Bethany Keeley on the FAQ page at her blog:

RestroomsThis is your pet peeve. You should also blog about mine, which is _____.

Answer: Actually, I don’t consider quotation marks a peeve. I just think it’s funny to misinterpret them, almost always. This is not the case with most other grammatical errors, although the occasional dangling modifier is pretty amusing. Somebody else can blog about your thing if they want; I really think the genius here is the specificity. Check out my sidebar though; some of those people might already blog about your thing. Especially you legion of apostrophe pedants.

Why are quotation marks such a big deal to you anyway?

Answer: They really aren't. I'm actually not a grammar fanatic at all, although clear writing is important to me. I have an actual job and PhD education which are higher priorities for me than anything quotation-mark related. I started this blog for fun never expecting anybody to notice it except my family and friends.

More here.

Posted by Abbas Raza at 03:27 PM | Permalink

Comments

I love blogs, pictures, etc. documenting the (apparently) endless uses of quotation marks. In this "Rest Rooms" example, e.g., it's funny to imagine why this rest room (isn't it "restroom"?) can't properly be called a restroom. What makes it a sort of, wanna-be, almost, pretty much, basically, for-all-intents-and-purposes restroom? :)

Posted by: Akbi | Sep 30, 2007 5:32:48 PM

you're so right. i've thought the same thing for a long time.

Posted by: bluegrassredstate | Apr 10, 2008 7:04:09 PM

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