Smart Quotes
Jan. 4th, 2008 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"The next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to quote another's wit."
- Christian Nestell Bovee (American author and lawyer)
"Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them.”
- Samuel Palmer (English landscape painter, etcher and printmaker)
When I think about quotations, the first thing that comes to mind is a dog-eared volume I found around the house when I was twelve or so. The title escapes me now; it was something like "The Big Book of Quotations." Certainly there are a thousand books like it in bookstores now, to say nothing of Bartlett's preponderance within the genre, but it seemed so novel to me at the time.
I remember devouring it, enjoying each rarified nugget of wisdom after it was plucked from its dense and tedious surroundings and placed on the page before me, like chocolate chip cookies with the cookie removed.
The fact that these proverbs, epigrams and observations were printed -- even in its library-quality blue hardcover binding -- gave them a veneer of Truth. That book was, dare I say, in its own unassuming way, sort of biblical.
Since then, I have learned to appreciate context, literary and otherwise. You can read Henry David Thoreau's words, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," but that doesn't tell you all that Walden had to say. (From what I remember, most of what it had to say was about tree bark. But my AP English teacher, Ms Hamm, taught us that Walden was a vivid illustration of man's will and ideals, so I'll take her word for it.)
Anyway, I still like to nibble on chocolate chips now and then. Truth is usually best in small doses.
And by the way, the second thing I think about when I think about quotations is how "quotation" is the noun and "quote" is the verb, and mixing them up is a violation punishable by stern and humiliating instruction. Ms Hamm taught us that, too.
- Christian Nestell Bovee (American author and lawyer)
"Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them.”
- Samuel Palmer (English landscape painter, etcher and printmaker)
When I think about quotations, the first thing that comes to mind is a dog-eared volume I found around the house when I was twelve or so. The title escapes me now; it was something like "The Big Book of Quotations." Certainly there are a thousand books like it in bookstores now, to say nothing of Bartlett's preponderance within the genre, but it seemed so novel to me at the time.
I remember devouring it, enjoying each rarified nugget of wisdom after it was plucked from its dense and tedious surroundings and placed on the page before me, like chocolate chip cookies with the cookie removed.
The fact that these proverbs, epigrams and observations were printed -- even in its library-quality blue hardcover binding -- gave them a veneer of Truth. That book was, dare I say, in its own unassuming way, sort of biblical.
Since then, I have learned to appreciate context, literary and otherwise. You can read Henry David Thoreau's words, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," but that doesn't tell you all that Walden had to say. (From what I remember, most of what it had to say was about tree bark. But my AP English teacher, Ms Hamm, taught us that Walden was a vivid illustration of man's will and ideals, so I'll take her word for it.)
Anyway, I still like to nibble on chocolate chips now and then. Truth is usually best in small doses.
And by the way, the second thing I think about when I think about quotations is how "quotation" is the noun and "quote" is the verb, and mixing them up is a violation punishable by stern and humiliating instruction. Ms Hamm taught us that, too.
where are the smart quotes?
Date: 2008-01-05 06:26 pm (UTC)I know that's not the point of your blog, but as a former copy editor I couldn't help but notice.
Re: where are the smart quotes?
Date: 2008-01-05 06:27 pm (UTC)Re: where are the smart quotes?
Date: 2008-01-07 02:11 pm (UTC)