If you've ever left your house or turned on a television, then you've heard someone use the phrase "quote unquote". This may be the single most annoying phrase in the entirety of English colloqualisms. Yes, I hate people saying "quote unquote" more than I Stewie hates people saying "a whole 'nother". Seeing as I use quotation marks pretty frequently, you're probably wondering why I would hate this saying so much. Is it because I'm angry that people are trying to insert punction into their speech? Absolutely not, and if people vocalized all punctuation it would certainly make conversations a lot more hilarious.

It may not be practical, but it would be entertaining. In fact, I challenge all of you to go talk like that for a full day. No seriously, do it. So if this isn't the reason, why do I hate "quote unquote" so much? It's because it doesn't mean anything.

You see, as you'll probably notice when I actually write the phrase "quote unquote", I am actually putting the quotation marks AROUND the phrase I am quoting. This is so you know what I'm actually quoting, which is the entire purpose of quotation marks. However, in speech no one seems to do that. They choose to put both quotation marks either before or after the actual quoted phrase. For example, someone might say:

Clearly this is meant to be a sarcastic remark, but it's hard to be sarcastic and superior when what you're saying would be written as:

So what the fuck are those quotes doing there? Is that to signify that the reader is to pause and gasp for air? Did you start drawing a spider but then stop because you forgot how many legs it had?

I appreciate that people want to utilize proper punctuation to make snide comments, but why don't you leave sarcasm to those of us who know what we're doing, since you clearly can't handle the responsibility. dr_jeebus@sydlexia.com

"I'd like to return your quote unquote ultimate belt."

© 2009 by Dr. Jeebus