A "Linguist" Talks About Quotation Marks

There's a post about quotation marks on languagelog.org this morning. Arnold Zwicky rants about a journalist using quotation marks for emphasis.

The article beings:

Gratifying though it is to see myself quoted in print, I'm peeved to see myself represented as using quotation marks for emphasis. Like, 'for emphasis', meaning for emphasis. But that's what happens in Leslie Savan's Slam Dunks and No-Brainers, chapter 2 ("Pop Talk is History"), in the section (pp. 33-4) titled "Who needs Esperanto when you've you got Coca-Cola?" I'm not entirely sure how this happened. More interestingly, this case illustrates an issue in the mention (rather than use) of linguistic material, including quotation: faithfulness vs. well-formedness (shades of OT!).

Keep reading...

Jewel-Osco Ad

Copy from a recent newspaper ad:

A Jewel-Osco "EXCLUSIVE" - Enjoy extra savings everytime you shop!

Typos everywhere!

On a baseball roster

On the Dominican Republic's World Baseball Classic provisional roster:

Wily "Mo" Pena

Don't forget his triplets, Wily "Larry" Pena and Wily "Curly" Pena.

Or perhaps his twin Wily "Less" Pena?

Someone recently shared with me an auto-email received from a professor who was out-of-town. It included the following sentence:

As I do not have a "laptop" computer, it is very unlikely that I will be reading e-messages during this period.

indeed.

How about unnecessary apostrophes?

Recently seen outside a booth at the Cubs Convention:
Which Cub is the official one?