Irrationally Excessive Reaction To Pet Peeve Of the Day

Nov 18, 2008

By Ken.

Irksome

Dear folks who use quotation marks inappropriately:

Don’t make “me” come over “there” and “kick” you in the “nuts.”

Many more “here.“

4 Comments

Edward • Nov 18, 2008 @5:41 pm

Before today I had no idea people did this.

Thank you for making me hate people more than I already did.
E • Nov 18, 2008 @10:22 pm

oh my god, thank you for doing this! The Quotation Mark thing has bugged me for YEARS. I find it is usually older people who do it, in my experience; maybe they learned it somewhere? In any case it drives me batty to see it.
Ruthie • Nov 19, 2008 @2:06 pm

Or there’s this usage, which my employer automatically puts on kid’s prescription labels: “Give ‘John’ one teaspoon daily.” Is “John” not an actual person? Because that’s what I get when I read the label.
Ken • Nov 19, 2008 @2:10 pm

It’s possible that they are all deconstructionists and followers of Derrida. “Give ‘John’ one teaspoon per day, to the extent you determine ‘John’ is an actual person rather than a collection of social constructs labeled arbitrarily as ‘John’ based upon your perceptions.”