quotation marks

[Mark A Mandel]

The MetroWest (Mass.) Daily News, April 29, 2002, ran this headline on
the top of page 1:

        Man killed in 'smoking' fire

My first reaction to this headline was "Why quotes?" As soon as I
mentally stripped them off, I saw why. Modifying "fire" as it does,
"smoking" would be read as a participle -- 'a fire that smokes' --
rather than a gerundive -- 'a fire due to [the act of] smoking'.

In speech the difference in intonation is unmistakable, but in writing
there is no established way to distinguish these homographic phrases.
Compared to the participial use of the "-ing" form, the gerundive is
infrequent enough that the problem rarely arises, and I suppose the
usual solution is to recast the phrase: not an easy option in a
headline.

Kudos to the headline writer for finding this novel solution.

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguist at Large