Thursday, September 27, 2007

The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks

I was really amused by the pictures posted on the unnecessary quotation marks blog. I think this one is the worst example of not only unnecessary quotation marks but also of English usage. Although maybe they were using quotation marks here to be funny. But why is "respect" capitalized? And why is it "in respect for others"? I think I would have said, "As a courtesy to others..." I would add a comma after that, too. And the comments on the blog mention that "put the music down" could be a regionalism, but I've only heard it as "turn the music down." Even then, I'm not sure the meaning would be very clear for this purpose.

So I think my version would be "As a courtesy to others, please keep your music at a reasonable volume." But maybe that sounds kind of awkward, too. :P

I also have some pictures from my personal collection to share here and here. If anyone needs something to blog about, feel free to use those. ;)

And finally, here is another amusing link: The Grammar Whores LJ Community

Obviously aside from being amusing, these sites can teach you a lot about correct English usage.

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