[Ads-l] quotation marks for emphasis

[Laurence Horn]

> On Jun 5, 2017, at 2:01 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Generally reviled, as around " 'wire tapping'," which may thus be
> interpreted as both "I really mean it!" or "Don't take me literally!”

I like that “both…or…”, nicely apropos given the source.

> 
> 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.

Maybe the idea is that while there were several possible (or perhaps two relevant) Brontes referred to, we would recognize (given E.D.’s strong partiality toward Jane Eyre) that her “Bronte” would necessarily be Charlotte.  Naaah.

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org