scare quote
1
7.7
- noun
- /skɛr kwot/
- Literature
:
comillas irónicas
- SamChevre: You're using scare quotes around 'harasser' (twice) despite Walling having admitted to and apologized for harassment.
But ultimately we get something that is sort of an IPC test, scare quotes around IPC because it's not exactly what it is, but you get the idea.
- But ultimately we get something that is sort of an IPC test, scare quotes around IPC because it's not exactly what it is, but you get the idea.
Examples
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I'm glad you put "neutral" in scare quotes, since none of those sites is anything close to neutral.
Blog text (33) -
I use scare quotes because "conservative" and "liberal" have utterly lost their true definitions in our modern U.S. society.
Blog text (8) -
And what is with the scare quotes surrounding "hot drinks"?
Blog text (19) -
Well, at least you used the scare quotes correctly.
Blog text (3) -
Hence the scare quotes around "religious freedom" at the end.
Blog text (31) -
What's up with the scare quotes around rebels?
Blog text (3) -
I assume that by using the scare quotes you are trying to say something more than what you wrote, so let me try to parse this.
Blog text (5) -
Christopher, I think the RNS put the scare quotes in because, at times, Zed has come off as a bit of a media hound.
Blog text (5) -
I have to be very careful not to tar Christians—without the scare quotes—with the same brush.
Blog text (31) -
The article used scare quotes around "freedom" to imply skepticism about its true meaning.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound links 'scare' (fear/doubt) with 'quote' (quotation mark), so a learner who knows both words can get a partial cue that these are quotation marks used to signal a negative stance or skepticism. However the idiomatic function—using quotes to indicate irony, doubt, or distancing—is not strictly literal or a standard compositional pattern, so the meaning is only partially predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Scare quote may come from the image of little quotation marks put like a warning around a word. The part scare suggests the writer is warning or showing 'doubt', and the quotes are the marks, so scare quotes tell readers a word is not fully trusted or is used 'ironically'.