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Where and when did you first read or hear the expression "scare quotes"?

― M. V. (M.V.), Monday, 1 May 2006 20:45 (twenty years ago)

just now.

― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 1 May 2006 20:49 (twenty years ago)

probably about a decade ago, but i couldn't tell you where.

― jbr with a z (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 1 May 2006 20:51 (twenty years ago)

No specific memory either, but I'm almost certain it was in something academic, or at least some kind of relatively serious journal or magazine criticism. I really like the term.

I'm fairly sure I saw/heard "scare quotes" slightly after I heard/saw "air quotes," a term I'm less excited by.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 1 May 2006 20:56 (twenty years ago)

Actually "air quotes" is cool if you think of it as analogous to, like, "air guitar," except that they're pretty much never used for actual quoting -- they're used for scare quotes, making them more like "air-scare quotes," which sounds horrible.

(Pretend that's an n-dash between "air" and "scare," not a hyphen.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 1 May 2006 20:57 (twenty years ago)

I hate air quotes, I like voices.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 1 May 2006 20:59 (twenty years ago)

http://joshreads.com/images/0604/quotinmargo.jpg

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 00:09 (twenty years ago)

in college - critical theory teacher used the term as shorthand for "what are you implying by putting that in quotation marks" - that would have been 1993 I guess

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 01:33 (twenty years ago)

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