BS/'quote-unquote'

Subject: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 12:41 PM

I just listened to a documentary on CBC about Kingston, Ontario's Queens University Homecoming in which a university official said,"...If it had been a quote, unquote riot then...".
It bothers me when supposedly educated peopl say,"quote, unuote" without putting anything between the quote and the unquote. The word quote means open quotations and unquote means close quotations. What he should have said was,"...If it had been a quote, riot, unquote then...". Why do people put both the quote and the unquote at the beginning of the quotation.

This is the equivalent of writing:
Jerry said,""Let's go to the movie.

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Peace
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:18 PM

That very thing drove Nero Wolfe to distraction. Also, it should not be 'unquote', but rather 'end of quote'. IMO.

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:18 PM

I don't see any need for using "quote-unquote" at all. Quotation marks are a written convention. Verbal communication has numerous other ways to convey the same idea without having to "borrow" from writing. Simple inflection usually does the job. For example, if I were to read the second sentence in this post aloud, I would stress the word "borrow" to indicate that it was being used in a not quite literal sense. I wouldn't say, "Quote, borrow, unquote." If inflection won't do the job, there are numerous adjectives and adjectival phrases that will. "So called" usually works.

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Peace
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:19 PM

Also, in oral communications, that is accomplished with things called "air bunnies."

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:24 PM

While I know EXACTLY what you mean, I never knew they had a name!

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:25 PM

One's speaking parts are always in the middle anyway, so there's no chance of dislocated punctuation.

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Peace
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:25 PM

Something I overheard somewhere, so I can't credit the source.

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: GUEST,james
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:25 PM

Air bunnies also put both sets of quotation marks at the beginning of the quotation.

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: bobad
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:31 PM

"Air bunnies also put both sets of quotation marks at the beginning of the quotation."

Not if you put them on either side of your mouth when you speak the word(s).

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Shaneo
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 02:16 PM

drives me crazy, it normally comes from the mouth of so called educated people.

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: John Hardly
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 02:48 PM

"air bunnies"

.periods.

,commas,

$dollar signs$

letters

(The preceding message brought to you courtesy of the Dept of Redundancy Department.)

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: PoppaGator
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 02:49 PM

When I was much younger, I was offended by the not-strictly-logical use of the phrase "quote/unquote" without putting the word(s) being "quoted" between the verbalized punctuaton marks.

I've since gotten over it, and am now emotionally able to accept this very common usage.

While "quote/unquote" often modifies the single word that follows, it can also modify a phrase of two or more words, but the speaker's intention is almost always very clear, without any necessity for placing the word(s) intended to be modified between the words "quote" and "unquote."

In fact, I've overcome my earlier pedantic objection so completely that I now use this expression myself from time to time.

There are other common-but-illogical expressions that still bug me and that I still refuse to honor by employing them myself. For example: "I could care less," where the actual intended meaning is "I couldn't care less."

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 02:52 PM

What drives me nuts are those people who don't hyphenate "so-called" and similar constructions. And the Brits, who don't use enough commas. And young ladies who miss periods. And people, who use too, too, many commas. These people make me so angry...oh, hello. Time for my pills already?

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Amos
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 03:18 PM

It is a colloquialism, for goodness' sakes, guys. It is the slang equivalent of "so-called", or "self-styled", or "alleged" or other sarcastic cross-references. It is just a figure of speech. If it were meant literally, it would of course be typographically incorrect, but it isn't -- it's a rhetorical device!

I once had a project manager who was fond of enunicating the word "comma" when he was inserting a modifying clause or a parenthetical remark in his verbal stream. He would say, "And comma just by the way, they had no authorization to spend the money"... as though he were typing. It was very funny to listen to at first but once we got used to it, it was just a rhetorical quirk and in fact made it easier to understand him. Despite its contravention of purist literary or typographical rules, it was nothing to get bent out of shape over.

Don't get your knickers in a quote unquote twist, mates. :D



A

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Emma B
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 03:29 PM

For phonetic punctuation you can't beat Victor Borge :)

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 03:54 PM

The one that drives me bonkers is 'at this point in time'. In time is redundant, and when else would it be? At this point in the future? At this point in the past? (Possible, but not probable. I can see where 'in the past' might have its uses though.)

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 04:24 PM

.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

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Amos
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 04:28 PM

Sorcha:

While I agree with you, the expression is used in contrast to "at this point in space". What else?


A

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Peace
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 04:28 PM

I uh "quote, unquote understand.

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: GUEST,james
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 04:58 PM

Sorcha,
   I blame John Dean for this expression. Before the Watergate hearings I had never heard,"at this point in time".

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 04:58 PM

I don't! LOL! What OTHER space might someone be in??? Oh yea, born for another planet perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 05:43 PM

"Now" is a whole bunch shorter.

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 06:17 PM

So is "at this point." I heartily dislike "at this point in time."

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Amos
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 07:54 PM

John Dean? I think you must mean Alexander Haig. Dean was a FAR better writer and speaker of straight English; and Haig was famous for his weird and nebulous tap-dance phraseology.


A

Subject: RE: BS/'quote-unquote'
From: Peace
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 08:07 PM

And then there's George Bush . . . .