frequent contributor Jon sends me a photo of this sheriff fan which says on the back "serving our community." Nicely spotted in downtown athens.
So, not really serving? not really a community? not really ours? All good questions...
thanks to Alisa who found this one at Gypsy Hill Park duck pond. She says "I actually have no idea what they're trying to communicate to me with that message. " Me neither, Alisa.
maybe what they really mean is you can use other coins "only" if you call them "nickles."
(I'm jealous of Alisa for her experience which included unneccesary quotation marks AND ducks, two things of which I am very fond.)
I found this on crummy church signs
what's weird about this is there is a place where quotation marks WOULD be appropriate one line down. But it's not there. Maybe "Summit's Youth" are really asking, do you have good grammar? our church could use some direction...
I was browsing the lowercase L blog (a problem much more common than I initially guessed) and the proprietor there, William, posted this letter from Mark "Hollywood" Hatten about his potential paternity of Anna Nicole's young daughter.
I am somehow not surprised that this silliness includes punctuation errors.
The letter is littered with semi-amusing errors, including the eggregious lower-case l among upper-case letters. But it also includes "sperm sample" in questionable quotation marks. (Highlighted in a different color even). See below:
A classic case of quotation marks for emphasis, I'm sure. I'm trying to think of something funny to say that's not innapropriate, and I've got nothing. A little help, readers?
Also a good item for crummy church signs, I like the way this sign can be read as really cynical.
(thanks to Jim who took this picture in LA today)
Found on the way home for Christmas this year:
Have we developed in-drive fueling now?
reader John posted this one in a comment. I'm not sure if the quotations signify a title here, and if that is grammatically kosher. However, I think we can all agree that the name of the coming store should be emphasized by a larger size, not by punctuation. Maybe the ineffectiveness of this sign is the reason the place closed down.
Maybe the place actually is entirely round - no corners at all! hence the quotation marks.... OR maybe the "games" are actually work. Like, hey kids, try this fun "game" called data entry!
(thanks John)
1. Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted.
2. COFFEE.EXE Missing - Insert Cup and Press Any Key
3. Buy a Pentium 586/90 so you can reboot faster.
4. 2 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
5. Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.
6. Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
7. My software never has bugs. It just develops random features.
8. C:WINDOWS C:WINDOWSGO C:PCCRAWL
9. C:DOS C:DOSRUN RUNDOSRUN
10. -{----- The information went data way --------[
11. Best file compression around: "DEL ." = 100% compression
12. The Definition of an Upgrade: Take old bugs out, put new ones in.
13. BREAKFAST.COM Halted...Cereal Port Not Responding
14. The name is Baud......, James Baud.
15. BUFFERS=20 FILES=15 2nd down, 4th quarter, 5 yards to go!
16. Access denied--nah nah na nah nah!
17. C: Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner.
18. Bad command. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaay..
19. Why doesn't DOS ever say "EXCELLENT command or filename!"
20. As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.
21. Southern DOS: Y'all reckon? (Yep/Nope)
22. Backups? We don' NEED no steenking backups.
23. E Pluribus Modem
24. ... File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)
25. Ethernet (n): something used to catch the Etherbunny
26. A mainframe: The biggest PC peripheral available.
27. An error? Impossible! My modem is error correcting.
28. CONGRESS.SYS Corrupted: Re-boot Washington D.C. (Y/n)?
29. Does fuzzy logic tickle?
30. A computer's attention span is as long as it's power cord.
31. 11th commandment - Covet not thy neighbor's Pentium.
32. 24 hours in a day...24 beers in a case...coincidence?
33. Disinformation is not as good as datinformation.
34. Windows: Just another pane in the glass.
35. SENILE.COM found . . . Out Of Memory . . .
36. Who's General Failure & why is he reading my disk?
37. Ultimate office automation: networked coffee.
38. RAM disk is not an installation procedure.
39. Shell to DOS...Come in DOS, do you copy? Shell to DOS...
40. All computers wait at the same speed.
41. DEFINITION: Computer - A device designed to speed and automate errors.
42. Go ahead, make my data!
43. Smash forehead on keyboard to continue.....
44. Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue...
45. ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI!
46. E-mail returned to sender -- insufficient voltage.
47. Help! I'm modeming... and I can't hang up!!!
48. All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?
49. Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue.
50. "640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981
51. DOS Tip #17: Add DEVICE=FNGRCROS.SYS to CONFIG.SYS
52. Hidden DOS secret: add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS
53. Press any key to continue or any other key to quit...
54. Press any key...... no, No, NO!! Not THAT one!
55. Press CTRL-ALT-DEL to continue ...
1. I don’t have pet peeves — I have major psychotic fucking hatreds!
2. Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
3. Swimming is not a sport. Swimming is a way to keep from drowning. That’s just common sense!
4. A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.
5. Have you ever noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff?
6. I wanna live. I don’t wanna die. That’s the whole meaning of life: Not dying! I figured that shit out by myself in the third grade.
7. I used to be Irish Catholic. Now I’m an American — you know, you grow.
8. You can’t fight City Hall, but you can goddamn sure blow it up.
9. If the Cincinnati Reds were really the first major league baseball team, who did they play?
10. Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.
11. If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
12. No one knows what’s next, but everybody does it.
13. There are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven you can’t say on television. What a ratio that is! 399,993 to 7. They must really be baaaad. They must be OUTRAGEOUS to be separated from a group that large. “All of you words over here, you seven….baaaad words.” That’s what they told us, right? …You know the seven, don’t ya? That you can’t say on TV? Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.
14. The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, “You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.”
15. The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.
16. Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it.
17. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
18. Weather forecast for tonight: Dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.
19. If it requires a uniform, it’s a worthless endeavor.
20. If you live long enough, sooner or later everybody you know has cancer.
21. You know the good part about all those executions in Texas? Fewer Texans.
22. Soft rock music isn’t rock, and it ain’t music. It’s just soft.
23. Reminds me of something my third-grade teacher said to us. She said, “You show me a tropical fruit and I’ll show you a cocksucker from Guatemala.”
24. As soon as someone is identified as an unsung hero, he no longer is.
25. If a movie is described as a romantic comedy, you can usually find me next door playing pinball.
26. The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other in opposite directions.
27. I knew a transsexual guy whose only ambition is to eat, drink, and be Mary.
28. I put a dollar in a change machine. Nothing changed.
29. If you’ve got a cat and a leg, you’ve got a happy cat. If you’ve got a cat and two legs, you’ve got a party.
30. You can prick your finger — just don’t finger your prick.
31. By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.
32. Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac?
33. Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice”?
34. I don’t like to think of laws as rules you have to follow, but more as suggestions.
35. I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
36. When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front-row seat.
37. Eventually, alas, I realized the main purpose of buying cocaine is to run out of it.
38. I never fucked a ten, but one night, I fucked five twos.
39. I never joined the Boy Scouts. I don’t trust any organization that has a handbook.
40. I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a man nailed to two pieces of wood.
41. Have you noticed that most of the women who are against abortion are women you wouldn’t want to fuck in the first place? There’s such balance in nature.
42. So I say, “Live and let live.” That’s my motto. “Live and let live.” Anyone who can’t go along with that, take him outside and shoot the motherfucker. It’s a simple philosophy, but it’s always worked in our family.
43. Catholic — which I was until I reached the age of reason.
44. Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who’s self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn’t need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car.”
45. I love and treasure individuals as I meet them; I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.
46. Beethoven was so hard of hearing, he thought he was a painter.
47. Don Ho can sign autographs 3.4 times faster than Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
48. God bless the homicidal maniacs. They make life worthwhile.
49. I’ve never seen a homeless guy with a bottle of Gatorade.
50. One great thing about getting old is that you can get out of all sorts of social obligations just by saying you’re too tired.
51. If Helen Keller had psychic ability, would you say she had a fourth sense?
52. What year did Jesus think it was?
53. George Washington’s brother, Lawrence, was the Uncle of Our Country.
54. Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It’s because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time.
55. In America, anyone can become president. That’s the problem.
56. Once you leave the womb, conservatives don’t care about you until you reach military age. Then you’re just what they’re looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers.
57. “One thing leads to another”? Not always. Sometimes one thing leads to the same thing. Ask an addict.
58. No one who has had “Taps” played for them has ever been able to hear it.
59. Property is theft. Nobody “owns” anything. When you die, it all stays here.
60. The best thing about living at the water’s edge: You only have assholes on three sides of you, and if they come this way you can hear them splash.
61. The future will soon be a thing of the past.
62. The planet is fine. The people are fucked.
63. The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.
64. Boxing is a more sophisticated form of hockey.
65. The only good thing ever to come out of religion was the music.
66. I think everyone should treat one another in a Christian manner. I will not, however, be responsible for the consequences.
67. Bowling is not a sport because you have to rent the shoes.
68. “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?” This title offends all three major religions, and even vegetarians!
69. Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.
70. And now, in the interest of equal time, here is a message from the National Institute of Pancakes: It reads, and I quote, “Fuck waffles.”
71. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
72. Whoever coined the term “Buyer Beware” was probably bleeding from the asshole.
73. Cloud nine gets all the publicity, but cloud eight actually is cheaper, less crowded, and has a better view.
74. Have you ever noticed that the lawyer always smiles more than the client?
75. I’m always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I’m listening to it.
76. Just think, right now as you read this, some guy somewhere is gettin’ ready to hang himself.
77. The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.
78. If all our national holidays were observed on Wednesdays, we could wind up with nine-day weekends.
79. “Meow” means “woof” in cat.
80. Most people with low self-esteem have earned it.
81. Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.
82. “No comment” is a comment.
83. If a man smiles all the time, he’s probably selling something that doesn’t work.
84. You can’t argue with a good blowjob.
85. Most of the time people feel okay. Probably it’s because at the moment they’re not actually dying.
86. So far, this is the oldest I’ve been.
87. Instead of warning pregnant women not to drink, I think female alcoholics ought to be told not to fuck.
88. Do you think Sammy Davis ate Junior Mints?
89. When you think about it, attention-deficit order makes a lot of sense. In this country there isn’t a lot worth paying attention to.
90. The Golden Gate Bridge should have a long bungee cord for people who aren’t quite ready to commit suicide but want to get in a little practice.
91. I think I am, therefore, I am. I think.
92. If the cops didn’t see it, I didn’t do it!
93. Hooray for most things!
94. Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff.
95. I don’t have a fear of heights. I do, however, have a fear of falling from heights.
96. What was the best thing before sliced bread?
97. May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
98. Life is a zero sum game.
99. Somehow I enjoy watching people suffer.
100. I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it.
101. It isn’t fair: the caterpillar does all the work, and the butterfly gets all the glory
10) Passionate love is a quenchless thirst.
Quote by Kahlil Gibran.
9) Love is like pi -- natural, irrational, and very important.
Quote by Lisa Hoffman.
8) Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love,
time is eternity.
- Quotes by Henry Van Dyke.
7)Love is a canvas furnished by Nature
and embroidered by imagination.
- Love Quotes by Voltaire.
6) Love is an energy - it can neither be created
nor destroyed. It just is and always will be,
giving meaning to life and direction to goodness...
Love will never die.
Quotes by Bryce Courtney.
5) Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength
while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Quotes by Lao-Tsu.
4) Tell me who admires and loves you,
And I will tell you who you are.
3) Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.
2) You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation...and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.
- Hermann Hesse Famous Love Quotes
1) I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge -- myth is more potent than history -- dreams are more powerful than facts -- hope always triumphs over experience -- laughter is the cure for grief -- love is stronger than death.
- Robert Fulghum
When LIFE asked comic Chris Rock if America is ready for an African American president, Rock tells LIFE:
"It's ready for a retarded president, why wouldn't it be ready for an African American president?"
WHAT IS SUCCESS?
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child
a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes
this isn't quotation marks, but I just love this sign. It's in a classroom where I spend a fair amount of time. It's like they consulted the fire or something. Awesome
So does this make it "all natural" peanut butter? Or all natural "peanut butter"?
this example, submitted by vigilant reader vikkitikkitavi, is priceless. I really have nothing to add to the commentary by the blogger who initially posted it.
I got behind a truck on the drive in this morning. This logo was proudly diplayed on the back. It could be worse - it could say ... Movers who "care."
thanks to my friend Jon for this photo of a mudblaster manny from ice age two:
I think the quotation marks are actually appropriate here, but it's still funny. I mean, what are those balls REALLY made out of??? (yeah, yeah, plastic. but come on...)
reader Megan submitted this fantastic billboard from rural NC.
Maybe we should always put quotes around freedom. Like the president. "they hate our 'freedom'"...
Jim found this on blogging.la.
I know it's not quotes but I think it's funny, and it's my blog.
maybe if people are going to be xenophobic they should learn to "write" their native language with punctuation that "makes sense."
Well I'm out here in Vancouver right now, and spotted a couple from my friends' theatre.
Not only is there a cuddle room, but apparently there's something called a "Glass Brick" room. This case may have actually worked with the quotes, though, as there were not actually any glass bricks in that room.
I guess that's enough said.
This begs the question: what are you putting in your truck (or Jetta)?
(My apologies for the finger in the picture - I was trying to shield the camera lens from the deluge attacking southern Minnesota at that point.)
reader vikkitikkitavi submits this photo and quips, "I forget, who said "Doing our part natural gas vehicle"? Was that Ben Franklin, or Oscar Wilde?"
apparently actual cutoffs or diapers that are REALLY exposed are a-ok. (seen at at least 2 Georgia apartment complex swimming pools)
Jon and Claude found this one on a Georgia highway. Someone is telling us to buy more for less. someone quoteable. Also, they are not open on any of the days after sunday and before monday. So if it's one of those days, and you want to "buy more for less"... tough luck.
thanks to Matt's friend Neal for spotting two hillarious examples, the first in this photo:
I'm going to start the Bethany's vacation "charity" soon... good idea!
The second was described thus:
"Also, this morning we saw a homemade sign (alas I didn't get a
picture) for
The Rub "Doctor" - Massage Therapist
Kind of creepy."
yes.
On the door at my insurance agent's office:
"No trespassing"
followed by
"No public restrooms"
It almost made me want to go to a new insurance agent.
Spotted when I went out to lunch at Big Apple Bagels the other day:
Babs' "homemade" tuna salad
So canned in other words.
I can't remember what outlet store we took this picture in:
I guess that means they aren't actually that comfortable?
thanks to frequent contributor Hailey who found this in a Great Wraps in San Antonio. I'm disappointed she didn't order it using air quotes.
reader maureen documents an additional case here. I suspect these quotation marks are meaningful, but it is still strange.
I like to believe the signmakers put those quotes in for sarcasm reasons (spotted by me and Jim atop smoky mountain national park).
the same restaurant that boasted this sign also had this one. We didn't go there.
my friend Jon points out the quotation mark spawned ambiguity of this label, found in households across the nation:
The person who wrote this sign must have some skepticism about the quality of the construction, if we can only use the term "doors" with irony... nevermind the complete lack of grammatical word order...
this one drives me crazy, and someone made an image to explain why. (Thanks internet!)
AND I just found this site: literally, a weblog which documents abuses of the word "literally" which are, pretty much, as funny as abuses of quotation marks.
Jon is on the lookout even while travelling. He saw this one in the Dallas airport. I can only imagine the things they might need to "supply" the "cabin"...
We saw this one on our drive from Georgia to Michigan. I don't even know how to begin this snark. But it has a single quotation mark. That's definately inappropriate.
I don't know if it's not really endless, not really soup and salad, or not really dining...
(found by Jim in Brighton MI)
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.
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?
Copy from a recent newspaper ad:
A Jewel-Osco "EXCLUSIVE" - Enjoy extra savings everytime you shop!
Typos everywhere!
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!).
aKaraoke screen I saw recently proudly announced a song was in the key of "E".
although, come to think of it, this may have been an appropriate use of quotation marks.
Found in a freshman English paper about a boy going to space: The "Houston" radioed me and told me to get strapped in because they were going to be "blasting off" in a few minutes.
no quotes here - but fun nontheless. Apparently the difference between "heated" and "warmed" is significant:
Kent pointed me to the Gallery of ''Misused'' Quotation Marks which has the same purpose as this site, but more traffic and more examples. In spite of the competition, I shall continue to add to this site when the opportunity arises.
Thanks to Danielle Sundberg who sent me this fantastic photo all the way from Istanbul Turkey. It really brings unneccesary quotation marks to a whole 'nother level. She says she found it "on a bench of sorts".
I don't even know what it means! awesome.
I went to Burger King one time, and all over their menu they had:
"New" Spicy Chicken
"New" Chicken Tenders
"New" Double Cheesburger
That's not exactly what was on the menu, but you get the point. What that says to me is "By 'new', we mean it's been sitting in the freezer for about 2 years and the health department says we need to get it out of there."
I am in the process of grading ~50 midterm examinations from my Public Speaking class. I have encountered several instances of misplaced quotation marks (as well as other writing errors and general incoherencies) and avoided the impulse to mark off points for such things. But I did appreciate the student who said the speaker in the sample speech might change the "wording" if she were speaking to Congress.
A pest control truck in Holland had the name of the company and, under it, in quotes, "we make mouse calls".
seen at a McDonald's in Everett, Washington last week:
This is a "Non-Smoking" Restaurant
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