Tuesday 20 March 2007

Doing Quotation Marks With Your Fingers

Over at Harry's Place someone in the comments (on the post about Quotation Marks) mentions people who do quotation marks while they're talking; usually, in my considerable experience, this is accompanied by tar-thick sarcasm and some kind of not-very-clever-but-thinks-it-is comment.

I'm sorry to say I was a teenager who did that the whole time. My only defence is this: Stephen Fry did it on tv, so I thought it was cool. I also hated the guts of most people I had to talk to, so knowing it pissed them off was fine by me. However, I can now see that this is the behaviour of a wanker. On the positive side, I don't think I've done it since 1994 so I've been clean for a while now.

7 comments:

Crushed said...

Not guilty, I'm afraid. I do have many annoying habits, but this isn't one of them.
I think I do gesticulate a fair bit whilst in full flow however.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Ha! Love your humour. Er - I'm afraid I sometimes still do it when speaking! Well, what do you expect, with the "Times Style Guide" and others - ooops - used them! - telling us to put titles, etc., in italics instead? A girl gets withdrawal symptoms....

Matt M said...

I think it depends on how they do them - as a throw-away gesture it's not too bad. It's the people that do it in a "look at me I'm doing quotation marks" way that bug me.

Bill Haydon said...

Matt, and WL, I'm sure you aren't included. I on the other hand, definitely was in the bracket of people who do it in a "look at me" way!!

Hence the need for a full and frank confession.

malpas said...

What happened in 1994 to stop you?

Bel said...

Guilty, but only in the 'throw-away manner' as mentioned by matt above. However, I don't remember the last time I did that.

Bill Haydon said...

1994 - I realised I was behaving like a tosser and that no-one liked me!