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= Scare quotes =
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Introduction
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Scare quotes (also called shudder quotes, sneer quotes,
* Miles, Murray,
[
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iA8ZQX4jyHoC&lpg=PA134&vq=sneer&
;pg=PA134#v=snippet&q=sneer&f=false
'Inroads: Paths in Ancient and Modern Western Philosophy']. University
of Toronto Press (2003). . page 134.
* Herbert, Trevor. 'Music in Words : A Guide to Researching and
Writing about Music'. Oxford University Press (2009). . page 126.
* Horn, Barbara. 'Copy-editing'. The Publishing Training Center.
(2008). page 68. and quibble marks) are quotation marks that a writer
places around a word or phrase to signal that they are using it in a
non-standard, ironic, or otherwise special sense. Scare quotes may
indicate that the author is using someone else's term, similar to
preceding a phrase with the expression "so-called"; they may imply
skepticism or disagreement, belief that the words are misused, or that
the writer intends a meaning opposite to the words enclosed in quotes.
History
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Elizabeth Anscombe coined the term 'scare quotes' as it refers to
punctuation marks in 1956, in an essay entitled "Aristotle and the Sea
Battle", published in ' Mind'. The use of a graphic symbol on an
expression to indicate irony or dubiousness goes back much further:
Authors of ancient Greece used a mark called a 'diple periestigmene'
for that purpose. Beginning in the 1990s, the use of scare quotes
suddenly became very widespread. Postmodernist authors in particular
have theorized about bracketing punctuation, including scare quotes,
and have found reasons for their frequent use in their writings.
* Nash, Christopher. 'The Unravelling of the Postmodern Mind'.
Edinburgh University Press. (2001) , page 92.
* Saguaro, Shelley. 'Garden Plots: The Politics and Poetics of
Gardens'. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. (2006) , page 62
* Olson, Gary A. Worsham, Lynn. 'Postmodern Sophistry: Stanley Fish
and the Critical Enterprise'. SUNY Press (2004) , page 18.
* Protevi, John. 'Time and Exteriority: Aristotle, Heidegger,
Derrida'. Bucknell University Press (1994), page 120. .
* Elmer, Johathan. 'Reading at the Social Limit: Affect, Mass Culture,
and Edgar Allan Poe'. Stanford University Press (1995) . page 34.
Usage
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Writers use scare quotes for a variety of reasons. They can imply
doubt or ambiguity in words or ideas within the marks, or even
outright contempt. They can indicate that a writer is purposely
misusing a word or phrase or that the writer is unpersuaded by the
text in quotes, and they can help the writer deny responsibility for
the quote. In general, they express distance between writer and quote.
For example: The scare quotes could indicate that the word is not one
the writer would normally use, or that the writer thinks there is
something dubious about the word 'groupies' or its application to
these people. The exact meaning of the scare quotes is not clear
without further context.
The term 'scare quotes' may be confusing because of the word 'scare'.
An author may use scare quotes not to convey alarm, but to signal a
semantic quibble. Scare quotes may suggest or create a
problematization with the words set in quotes.
Criticism
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Some experts encourage writers to avoid scare quotes because they can
distance the writer and confuse the reader.
Editor Greil Marcus, in a talk at Case Western Reserve University,
described scare quotes as "the enemy", adding that they "...kill
narrative, they kill story-telling ... They are a writer's assault on
his or her own words." Scare quotes have been described as ubiquitous,
and the use of them as expressing distrust in truth, reality, facts,
reason and objectivity.
Political commentator Jonathan Chait wrote in 'The New Republic', "The
scare quote is the perfect device for making an insinuation without
proving it, or even necessarily making clear what you're insinuating."
In 1982, philosopher David Stove examined the trend of using scare
quotes in philosophy as a means of neutralizing or suspending words
that imply cognitive achievement, such as 'knowledge' or 'discovery'.
In speech
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In spoken conversation, a stand-in for scare quotes is a hand gesture
known as 'air quotes' or 'finger quotes', which mimics quotation
marks. A speaker may alternatively say "quote" before and "unquote"
after quoted words, or say "quote unquote" before or after the quoted
words, or pause before and emphasize the parts in quotes. These spoken
methods are also used for literal and conventional quotes.
See also
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* Evidentiality
* Irony punctuation
* Quotation
License
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License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes
