Suspicious Quotation Marks – “Why?”
Some people question why they need to learn English in schools. Suspicious quotation marks as seen above are a powerful argument in the fight for better schooling. We won’t even get into the greengrocers’ apostrophes or anything like that.
Surely, people understand the idea that speech marks are used for two thing. Firstly, they denote speech. Secondly, in common cultural usage, air quotes are used to denote that something is not quite what is being described. So if you read the above signs, none of them are denoting speech, which leaves them as suspicious quotation marks.
I can understand that some people might not have English as their first language and may get it wrong. But some of the signs are professionally made. That means that someone, who has the full time job of designing and making signs, does not understand the use of suspicious quotation marks…or just doesn’t care.
Suspicious Quotation Marks Explained
So here is a breakdown of the signs above for anyone that fails to see why the text contains suspicious quotation marks:
- “Cheese” Burger – implies that the cheese is not actually cheese.
- Made “Fresh” in-store – implies that it was not made fresh in store.
- Ring Bell for “meat service” – either it’s not meat you’re buying, or is a euphemism.
- “Restrooms” for customer use only – implies that what you are entering is not a restroom, or substandard one.
- Video Cameras “watching you” 24/7 – implies that the camera isn’t actually watching you.
- Professional “massage” – implication of sexual massage, or poorly conducted one.
- Caution “Slippery” when wet – implies that the floor might not be slippery when wet.
- “Sprinklers” throughout building – implies that there isn’t full sprinkler coverage in the building.
- “Vegetable” Cream Cheese – implies that the items in the cream cheese are not, in fact, vegetables.
- Employee must “wash hands” – implies that the worker doesn’t have to wash hands.
Hopefully, that has made things clearer and that the world is a better place. Or, most likely, nothing will change!