the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks

[fishwax]

This blog collects photographs of signs, menus, etc. that include quotation marks for no apparent reason, thus implying that the items for sale (or whatever) aren't quite what they appear to be. I figured some loungers would enjoy it: http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

[PeaceNikki]

1. I enjoy this site.

:thumbsup:

[AlCzervik]

2. i'm pissed i didn't take a picture of a house in my neighborhood at Christmas, on the

from window written in fake snow was "Happy Holidays".

[PeaceNikki]

3. Better than

"Happy" Holidays.

[Deja Q]

4. "To lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose."

to be in quotes, what does one "win" apart from a cheap toxic toy?

[Deja Q]

5. I wanna caption two of them!!

Looking at the surrounding selections, must be right-wing corporate propaganda...


Wow. All those record albums featuring the old geezers, entitled "I want to touch him", are nothing compared to this sign... poor turtles...


Must be "ajar"...

[DS1]

6. I'm going to start one of these for unnecessary apostrophes

[sniffa]

7. I use, commas, unnecessarily

and it drives, Bi-baby, nuts.

[DS1]

8. speaking of nuts

ever since she mentione'd, that you couldn't stand open kitchen cabinet's, neither can, I.

[trof]

13. I just close them.

Then they're no longer "open".
:rofl:

[amitten]

12. Just as bad is using too few commas. That's a current trend.

People are so afraid of commas nowadays that sentences go on and on and just when you think that it's time for a comma sadly none ever appears due to the current comma-fear which makes me wonder what exactly English teachers are up to these days. :P

(If you're writing, and it sounds like it's time for a comma, it probably is.)

[Lucian]

9. I "don't" get "it".

:shrug:

[amitten]

10. Well, in fairness some of these are used correctly.

Quotation marks don't always mean that the subject they are around isn't really what it seems. That is just one use, and many of these aren't an example of that.

Another use is to take a word, and make it apparent to the reader (with quotations) that the word or term is kind of a coined phrase, or current lingo/slang, or someone's chosen pet term for something.

For example:

I understand that Susan was dressed like a "ho" at that party, but that doesn't mean that John should have been trying to cop a feel all night.

There are a lot of examples of this usage on the blog, and the blog author is apparently unaware of this sort of usage, It sadly makes the blogger look kinda dumb, even though the site is a cute idea.

[fishwax]

11. actually, she acknowledges that usage

in at least one of the examples. There are also some that I would argue are defensible as references to a company slogan of some sort, and thus presented as a quotation. And, similar to their use with slang, quotation marks can also be used to stress that a word is being used contrary to conventional usage. So I agree with you that some of the examples aren't good examples of "unnecessary" quotation marks.

But I think in most of these examples people were (mistakenly) using quotation marks for emphasis.

[Odin2005]

14. This one gave me a laugh:

http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/2009/02/natural.html

Not natural burgers, but merely "natural" burgers. Is that kind of how McDonald's burgers are make of "beef"?

[FloridaJudy]

15. This guy "approves"