sixtysixninetynine

I'm looking at the use of quotation marks.
the first time speech marks were explained to me, was when i was in class 2. It was explained by the head teacher! which was a big deal - she never taught lessons. I remember being both scared of an in awe of her. - As in very scared. I was a shy child. So maybe that's why this stuck with me.

UNFINISHED!

Continued:

Quotations to Scare Quotes. I always want to type square quotes.

So i was looking on the net for information about quotes and the usage, and the second usage listed is

Irony

Main article: Scare quotes

Another common use of quotation marks is to indicate or call attention to ironic or apologetic words:

He shared his “wisdom” with me.

The lunch lady plopped a glob of “food” onto my tray.

To avoid the potential for confusion between ironic quotes and direct quotations, some style guides specify single quotation marks for this usage, and double quotation marks for verbatim speech. Quotes indicating irony, or other special use, are sometimes called scare, sneer, shock, distance, or horror quotes. They are sometimes gestured in oral speech using air quotes.

This reminded me of Island- the book i read over the summer by Huxley.

The main character is washed ashore onto the forbidden island of Pala where he observes the communist Buddhist life of the inhabitants.

The messages in the book are fascinating to me. The Palanese have a way of life which creates a harmonious existence and it's based on a few simple things:

birth control - they don't have a population problem so there is enough food

under industrialised - modern technology doesn't hinder personal advancement. -infact there is a small amount of electricity around. -from what i remember, on one part of the island there is a water powered generator that's used to power a communal freezer.) (Like in Dinosaurs)

The Notes on What's What - and what it might be reasonable to do about what's what.

Yoga of living - the idea is that living in a certain way and being fully conscious of doing so creates the ultimate way to live, by practising life in a way that makes it...more of an exercise...i need to re-read and render this because i can't explain it properly.

ETC

The Palanese life is presented as very wholesome and complete where everyone is happy. The main character is the devil's advocate in that he is very cynical and questions the validity of their way of life.

He is described as snorting and laughing like a 'hyena' and his cynical remarks are presented in an subversively negative light, where the faults he picks out in the Palanese theories, ultimately point to the faults in him.

TO SCARE QUOTES::::::

Usage

Writers use scare quotes for a variety of reasons. When the enclosed text is a quotation from another source, scare quotes may indicate that the writer does not accept the usage of the phrase (or the phrase itself)^[3], that the writer feels its use is potentially ironic, or that the writer feels it is a misnomer. This meaning may serve to distance the writer from the quoted content.

The significance of this to me relates to the identity crisis i am having.

I find it interesting that people use scare quotes and how they came to have a place in human language.

History

Use of the term scare quotes appears to have arisen at some point during the first half of the twentieth century. Occurrence of the term in academic literature appears as early as the 1950s.^[1][2]