Comments on: Scared Yet? http://www.word-detective.com/2009/01/scared-yet/ Semper Ubi Sub Ubi Wed, 20 Mar 2013 19:32:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Stephen http://www.word-detective.com/2009/01/scared-yet/comment-page-1/#comment-663 Stephen Thu, 15 Jan 2009 02:35:06 +0000 http://www.word-detective.com/?p=1226#comment-663 I don't read the WSJ, so I don't know their political bent. But it seems to me that this usage could simply mark a word or phrase as a keyword, a shorthand reference to what someone else says or is known to say without actually quoting the other person. One does not necessarily have to interpolate a judgmental "so-called" into the text where so-called "scare quotes" are used. I know I sometimes find myself making an informal and very non-standard distinction between single and double quotation marks, where double quotation marks are for an exact quotation, and single quotation marks are for an approximate quotation, so to speak. Thus I may use single quotation marks as I described above, to highlight a word or phrase as a reference to something specific without having to spell it out in detail each time. This 'quotation mark rule' is, as I say, my own little quirk, but I find it useful. I don’t read the WSJ, so I don’t know their political bent. But it seems to me that this usage could simply mark a word or phrase as a keyword, a shorthand reference to what someone else says or is known to say without actually quoting the other person. One does not necessarily have to interpolate a judgmental “so-called” into the text where so-called “scare quotes” are used.

I know I sometimes find myself making an informal and very non-standard distinction between single and double quotation marks, where double quotation marks are for an exact quotation, and single quotation marks are for an approximate quotation, so to speak. Thus I may use single quotation marks as I described above, to highlight a word or phrase as a reference to something specific without having to spell it out in detail each time. This ‘quotation mark rule’ is, as I say, my own little quirk, but I find it useful.

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