Thursday, May 17, 2018

quotation marks - What punctuation symbols mean "not in the full sense of the referenced phrase?"

This strip of Dinosaur Comics made me wonder whether it is appropriate to use quotation marks (in the terms of the comic) "as a not in the full sense of the word" lingual marker.



Searching Google, I found a Daily Writing Tips blog entry that indicates quotation marks can express irony. The Wikipedia article on "Irony Punctuation", however, indicates that no standard way to denote irony or sarcasm in English. It mentions "scare quotes," which seem to be closest to meaning that the word or phrase was not intended to have its full meaning, but scare quotes carry the risk of ambiguity - how do you distinguish between a properly quoted phrase and a phrase that means something differently?




Is there an established, unambiguous punctuation that suggests that the enclosed or referenced phrase does not have its full meaning?

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