Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Either of a pair of quotation marks used to emphasize a word or phrase or to indicate its special status, especially to express doubt about its validity or to criticize its use.
Wiktionary
- n. A quotation mark deliberately used to provoke a reaction or to indicate that the author does not approve of the term, rather than to identify a direct quotation.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the use of quotation marks to indicate that it is not the authors preferred terminology
Examples
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bilby The last question, danbloom, is when's your assignment due? Jun 27, 2012
danbloom the main questions are now WHO coined the term Scare Quote and WHEN and why the word SCARE there? and are all scare quotes really scare quotes? Jun 27, 2012
danbloom could you do a new blog post one day SOON, and ask readers these 4 short questions:
1. Who coined the term “scare quotes”? and when , what year, and where, and why the word SCARE?
2. does everyone know what the term means? is it often used in OZ media? A friend there told me she never heard of it before and that it is not used in Australia as far as she knows.
3. sicne the term SCARE QUOTES is a bit SCARY, and has no real meaning, in terms of firght, or scare, might tehre be a better more inclusive term to use for this kind of thing, like “air quotes” or call out quotes or quote unquote quotes? or any other suggestioons for a better term since SCARE QUOTEs jsut does not cut it?
4. i forgot the last qestuion
Jun 27, 2012