[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re:, was question for Amanda now poor punctuation

[Amanda Lewanski]

Jen Faulkner wrote:

> > *my* pet peeves ... and that is the little quotation thingy that
> people
> > do
> > in the air with their fingers when they are trying to add extra
> emphasis
> > to
> > a word or phrase or they are being sarcastic. Who the heck started
> that
> > annoying action, anyway?
>
> But surely people don't do that *just* for emphasis, do they?  It
> indicates sarcasm or disbelief, *not* emphasis -- at least whenever
> I've seen anyone do / done that.  It also means something along the
> lines of 'so-called'... that's how I used it in my presentation on
> Alessandro Barchiesi's book "The Poet and The Prince" on Tuesday; to
> problematize
> the use of terms 'discourse', 'Augustan', and 'propaganda', I did
> indeed make little quotey-things in the air...

So far, the gesture and the spoken term "quote-unquote" still carry this
meaning exclusively, the "so-called" one. It's only in written form, and
usually on signs or banners, that I've seen the double quotes mean
emphasis.

By the way, has anyone else of the apostrophe-s complaint department,
other than me, actually accosted someone in one of those wooden sign
booths making house plaques, and tried to explain why it shouldn't be
"The McMaster's House"? Or worse (I've seen this, I swear)--"The Jone's
House." People *pay* for these things, and I have never, ever, ever, in
all the craft shows I've been to, seen one of these places doing the
apostrophes correctly. Sigh.

--Amanda
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