.If it had been a quote, unquote riot then..

He might better have said,

"If it had been a properly described riot, then.."

or

"If it had really been a riot, then.." (my favorite)

or

"If the disorder had risen to real riot level, then.."

or

"If the disorder at the meeting had justified the word 'riot', then.."

or

"if it had really been a [dropping voice-pitch] riot, [resuming natural delivery], then.."


There are so many ways to express the thought desired by use of straightforward language that the verbalizing and displacing of the names of punctuation marks is unjustified, and calls for an unnecessary mental readjustment on the part of the listener, a mental going-back over the sentence to reassemble the thought.

Dave Oesterreich