[Ads-l] quotation marks for emphasis

[Jonathan Lighter]

Generally reviled, as around " 'wire tapping'," which may thus be
interpreted as both "I really mean it!" or "Don't take me literally!"

Early ex.? :

ca1859 in Emily Dickinson _Complete Poems_ (ed. T. H. Johnson) [Boston:
Little, Brown, 1960] 70: Oh what an afternoon for Heaven,/ When "Bronte"
entered there.

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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