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Home » Archives » Spring 2008 (Volume 5 Issue 2) - Authority and Cooperation
The Merciless Grammarian Spring 2008 / Columns
The Merciless Grammarian spews his wrath on nasty problems of grammar, mechanics, and style.
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Drawing by Nathan Baran Revered and Most Merciless Grammarian: I don’t know if it’s the spring thaw, but quotation marks seem to have been proliferating everywhere I look. Is it okay to use quotes around words referred to as such, for example, the word "desanguinate"? What about using them for emphasis or to show irony, as in a "stellar" suggestion? Grovelingly yours, Boudicca Smatters Esteemed Boudicca: At last a correspondent after my own heart! The groveling helps, too. I respect your tactfully veiled suspicion over these uses of what the British charmingly refer to as inverted commas (as if someone tipped them over when reaching for the chips). Let me address each of your questions in turn. Our story begins in Venice, 1501, when an enterprising printer named Aldus Manutius developed a slanted typeface so that he could fit more words on the page. Thus italics were born. Why, oh why, do we shun them so? Although you may see the unwashed, particularly journalists, use quotation marks to signal that words are being referred to as words — perhaps the Grub Street crowd fears litigious readers in neck braces from reading too much slanted type — the academic convention is to use this gift of Aldus for this purpose. Accordingly, we would cite the word desanguinate. Logophiles are fond of using quotation marks, however, to note the meanings of words, viz. desanguinate comes from
a Latin verb meaning "to drain of blood." And there I’ve used italics again to provide emphasis. Which takes us to your second question. Quotation marks used to emphasize a point, signal a novel term, or convey an ironic tone are termed "scare quotes" by those who traffic in punctuation. For example, an overeager job applicant may write that he considers himself a "team player" with a "can-do" attitude. My acerbic confreres who compile the Chicago Manual of Style note, "Like any such device, scare quotes lose their force and irritate readers if overused" (p. 293). I fondly call to mind a sardonic graffiti artist who, seeing that some wellintentioned soul had used scare quotes on a sign indicating that there was to be "No" Smoking, proceeded to place them around every label in the room. As a result, the whole place smacked of irony. Entrances to the lavatories were now merely for "Men" and "Women" (questioning the socially constructed nature of gender, perhaps?). The safety device hanging on the wall was now a so-called "Fire Extinguisher," and the soft-drink machine sold beverages only purportedly made by "Pepsi." Hmm … scare quotes. Sounds a bit like scarecrow, doesn’t it? And what did the Scarecrow want more than anything else, Dorothy? Cutting to the quick, The Merciless One ‹ Sutton’s Rule for Writing Centers
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