Friday, November 05, 2010

actual information for once



Grammar Girl just published this helpful video that explains how to use single quotation marks correctly. So if you don't already know, watch and learn! If you do, watch anyway and marvel at her skill at explaining grammar rules clearly.

5 comments:

Virginia M. Wright said...

She IS good!

Classic Steve said...

Meh, not very concise of her. More troubling is her use of finger quotes, which imply that when she says "quotation marks," she doesn't actually mean them.

Also, it wouldn't have taken long to explain how they're used in Britain.

Terry Lee said...

i liked her explanation video. but was she calling it "sneer" or "snare" or what (for when we don't really mean what we're saying)?

i couldn't understand it clearly ... and i've never heard those terms before.

bethany said...

she was saying scare quotes or sneer quotes. like you're afraid of the meaning of the term, or sneering at it :)

Anonymous said...

Her example wasn't particularly clear as far as explaining the concept of nested quotations. She is using the quotation marks in two completely different ways. A better example would have been:

Laura asked, "Did Bob say, 'I hate those mushy peas,' or did he say 'I ate those mushy peas,' because there's a big difference, you know."

Okay, so maybe there's supposed to be some question marks in there or something. You get the idea. Using "scare quotes" (like those) just confuses the issue.