September 13 07

I work in publishing..so occasionally, the grammar policewoman in me rears her ugly head. Mostly it’s the misuse of I and me. “She took a picture ofรƒโ€šร‚ย Emily and I” ack! that just about kills me! i know, i know, i’m feeling the hypocrisy right now. i don’t use caps on my blog. occasionally, i misuse a word. My friend Orah called me out once for using the word two instead of too. but this place is a blog…and i write it quickly and don’t go back and check it…my grammar rules fly out the window.

one of my favorite grammar mistakes, however, is the all-too-often misuse of quotation marks. they are everywhere.

don’t you know:

so, i hereby give you my list of thirteen of my favorite misuses of quotation marks….and i highly recommend that you pick up this book:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11. this one is abuse on sooo many levels…

12.

13.

-
  1. “Yikes” ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Comment by LoriD on September 13, 2007
  2. Oh, my biggest pet peeve is when I see a sign that say something like: We’re open Saturday’s – why the apostrophe? WHY? WHY? WHY? Drives me bat shit crazy!!

    Comment by sam on September 13, 2007
  3. Bwah ha ha! Since you often see quotation marks around a word or phrase that the writer is portraying as dubious, I wonder exactly what people aren’t supposed to husk if it isn’t really “corn”. I loved ‘Eats Shoots & Leaves’, but then I’m an editor and I’m funny that way. I hate the whole apostrophe to pluralize thing. I once took a kleenex and erased the second apostrophe from the white board in the cafeteria announcing “Today’s Special’s”. The next day it was back. Sigh.

    Comment by alison on September 13, 2007
  4. As my native language is NOT English, I hope you give me some “slack”!

    Comment by Nadine on September 13, 2007
  5. ooh, these make me “cringe.”

    Comment by Nancy on September 13, 2007
  6. This just made my day. I, too, go a little crazy over grammatical errors. One of my favorites is the misuse of penultimate in place of ultimate.

    And what is a “quality” instructor? It sounds like a few of my university professors.

    Comment by b*babbler on September 13, 2007
  7. I don’t understand how some people use quotation marks. So very odd. And don’t even get me started on apostrophe abuse.

    Comment by andi on September 13, 2007
  8. I hate when people think that a lot is one word, and decide to type alot. jerks. Also, I randomly quote people all the time without referencing them. You know, like inside jokes and such. Anyhow, I hope people are not under the impression that I am using quotes for emphasis. I would be distraught. For instance, anytime I make fun of the word ‘ain’t’, I place quotation marks around it so that people clearly understand that I am quoting someone else and not saying it myself. I never considered the fact that someone might think I was trying to emphasize my own use of the word, because clearly, emphasizing with quotations is quite obscene. I think I could partially deal with the quotations. However, I cannot deal with the a + lot=alot folks. That’s just out of control.

    Comment by manda on September 13, 2007
  9. ROTFL those are great!

    Comment by Mama Duck on September 13, 2007
  10. Oh my gosh, those signs are KILLING me! My fingers are positively itching for my red pen. How can people be so stupid?!

    This totally reminds me of that episode of Friends where Joey didn’t know how to use air quotes.

    Comment by Audrey on September 13, 2007
  11. I can’t text message for this very reason. I don’t know how to abbreviate and writing U R instead of “you are” is against my nature.

    Comment by hello insomnia on September 13, 2007
  12. There is a restaurant I often pass called the “Fiftie’s” Diner. (quotes and all). I sometimes wonder why sign makers don’t hire people to edit signs.
    My biggest grammar pet peeve is the word “yous” as in “yous guys” – it drives me insane!

    Comment by Laural on September 13, 2007
  13. Have more “tea”!
    Okay, buddy. We all know what you REALLY mean.

    Comment by Rebecca on September 13, 2007
  14. oh my goodness… I laughed so hard… I am a user of air quotations, which my daughter makes fun of me for. This made me think of that though… are they implying it isn’t actually your car you get to keep, with the title loan? this was so funny…

    Comment by misty on September 13, 2007
  15. That’s hilarious! I never noticed people using quotation marks for emphasis. that’s TERRIBLE — spoken by a fellow grammar lover…. ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Comment by haley-o on September 13, 2007
  16. Hahaha I love the “Quality” one ;]

    Comment by Haley on September 13, 2007
  17. LOL! I “love” these!

    Comment by BlondeBlogger on September 13, 2007
  18. I’m awful at using those “things”!

    Comment by FENICLE on September 13, 2007
  19. Oh yes, I “hate” those too. I think I have some kind of special vision that allows me to see typos or grammatical errors, except for those words which I always misspell (including grammar and misspell, which certainly could be spelled incorrectly here.)

    I especially liked that in the previous post you wrote about putting your car in “reserve” (AGAIN with the quotes). Unless I just skipped the part about reserve parking in drivers education. Haha.

    Comment by jennie on September 13, 2007
  20. did I say reserve parking? sorry, got my smarty comment all wrong.

    Comment by jennie on September 13, 2007
  21. I still haven’t “read” that book “yet”…I’ll “have” to get to it “soon”.

    As “always” your 13’s “rock”!

    Comment by ~JJ! on September 13, 2007
  22. Please tell me you’ve been here: http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

    It’s great for a laugh.

    Comment by Shannon on September 13, 2007
  23. Even more than that, I hate the exchange of “u” for “you”, “2” for “to”, “ur” for “your”, etc. Stuff like that makes me cringe.

    Comment by thethinker on September 13, 2007
  24. OMG, OMG, OMG… I loved this!!! Punctuation and quotes are a MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR PET PEEVE ON MINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Can I just say to the blogosphere in general:

    Punctuation goes *inside* the “quotes!”

    Punctuation *DOES NOT* go outside the “quote”!

    ๐Ÿ˜‰

    (And yes, several commenters even did it above) ๐Ÿ™‚

    Comment by aimee/greeblemonkey on September 14, 2007
  25. That “post” was painful. :-p

    Comment by Jackie on September 14, 2007
  26. Damn. I cringed through this entire TT.

    There is a used car dealership right around the corner from my best friend’s house and every time I drive to her house I am tempted to run over to their garage doors and do some editing. In huge letters it says: YOUR APPROVED!

    Seriously, it drives me INSANE.

    Comment by mamatulip on September 14, 2007
  27. I “wonder” what these “people” are “hinting at.” So many inuendos, not enough time.

    And yes, apostrophe abuse drives me nuts, too!

    Comment by loren on September 16, 2007
  28. what the “hell”? “Who” doesn’t know how to use quotation marks?

    Comment by Humor Girl on September 18, 2007
  29. Haha! This post was hysterical – I giggled all the way through it! It reminds me of Chris Farley doing the “air quotes!” on Saturday Night Live.

    Comment by Laura on September 19, 2007
  30. Hi, I just discovered your blog through this post, and I love it! I’m a teacher and a bit of a grammar freak myself, though I have to admit I’d never seen all these crazy misuses of quotation marks! Add it to my already existing pet peeves: the I/me confusion and the apostrophe/plural confusion. Eats Shoots and Leaves is like a bible to me, by the way.
    Cheers!

    Comment by bazu on September 20, 2007
  31. What I love is how quotation marks are often used to imply that we’re just going to call it that, but it’s not really, so “stray” golf balls might have been knocked out on purpose, and your “car” is a pretty lame imitation of a proper vehicle. Hee hee.

    Comment by kittenpie on September 20, 2007
  32. I just read this in the paper a couple of days ago….after you wrote this, I believe. “Funny!”

    http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hBPppVEubiJ_qOqTvA_SAIkWXzAg

    Comment by Di on September 24, 2007
  33. Atomoxetine hydrochloride….

    Atomoxetine. Atomoxetine strattera from eli lilly. Eli lilly atomoxetine. Strattera atomoxetine. Atomoxetine and drug abuse liability….

    Trackback by Atomoxetine hci. on July 12, 2008
  34. Atomoxetine….

    Atomoxetine. Atomoxetine hydrochloride. Eli lilly atomoxetine. Strattera atomoxetine. Atomoxetine and drug abuse liability. Atomoxetine generic….

    Trackback by Atomoxetine hydrochloride. on July 13, 2008
-

Allowed tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>