Getting the ‘emphasis’ wrong
Next to misplaced apostrophes (traditionally used by greengrocer’s to advertise banana’s), quotation marks are next on the list of punctuation that is thrown in generous handfuls at writing without any real idea why.
The ‘blog’ of unnecessary ‘quotation’ marks beautifully highlights this with howlingly funny pictures taken by contributors of punctuation pain.
Most of the examples on Bethany Keeley’s blog seem to show that writers of posters and signs believe that quotes make their writing stand out - and so it does, but in completely the wrong way. But outside using it to show direct quotes, quotation marks are more correctly used to show ‘nonstandard, ironic, or other special sense’, according to the Chicago Manual of Style.
Which makes it all the funner when they are abused by people offering ‘food’ (what, you mean it isn’t really?). Or, like the picture here, a way out in case of ‘fire’ (no, go on you’re having a laugh).
March 26th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
A mighty fine point, Andrew.
Another one that I hate is over use of ! on signs. It’s like the boy who cried wolf; use it too many times and people stop paying attention. There’s one in Oslo’s Gardemoen airport that says: “Gardemoen airport. Get a brochure!” As if a brochure is really something to shout about.