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Writers use scare quotes for a variety of reasons. They can imply doubt or ambiguity in words or ideas within the marks, [18] or even outright contempt. [19] They can indicate that a writer is purposely misusing a word or phrase [20] or that the writer is unpersuaded by the text in quotes, [21] and they can help the writer deny responsibility for the quote. [19]
A bracketed exclamation point or question mark as well as scare quotes are also sometimes used to express irony or ironic sarcasm. [ 29 ] In certain Ethiopic languages, sarcasm and unreal phrases are indicated at the end of a sentence with a sarcasm mark called temherte slaq , a character that looks like an inverted exclamation point ¡. [ 30 ]
The term black humor (from the French humour noir) was coined by the Surrealist theorist André Breton in 1935 while interpreting the writings of Jonathan Swift. [8] [9] Breton's preference was to identify some of Swift's writings as a subgenre of comedy and satire [10] [11] in which laughter arises from cynicism and skepticism, [8] [12] often relying on topics such as death.
During his press conference, he said he had uttered that phrase "sarcastically" and said, "It was wrong to sarcastically say I was a racist." An account on X, formerly Twitter, ...
He also sarcastically agreed that the problem is Democrats using the word “fascist.” “You don’t see Donald Trump doing that all the time,” he said, then played a supercut video of the ...
Air quotes, also called finger quotes, are virtual quotation marks formed in the air with one's fingers when speaking. The gesture is typically done with both hands held shoulder-width apart and at the eye or shoulders level of the speaker, with the index and middle fingers on each hand flexing at the beginning and end of the phrase being ...
Both the concept and the etymology of the word, while being of uncertain origin, appear to stem from the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. [4] The 10th-century Byzantine Greek encyclopedia Suda traces the word's earliest roots to the notion of grinning (Ancient Greek: σαίρω, romanized: sairō) in the face of danger, or curling one's lips back at evil.
Scare quotes are a particular use of quotation marks. They are placed around a word or phrase to indicate that it is not used in the fashion that the writer would personally use it. In contrast to the nominal typographic purpose of quotation marks, the enclosed words are not necessarily quoted from another source.