Notable Quotables

Using Quotation Marks for EmphasisDear Everyone,

Who told you you could use quotation marks for emphasis?

No, seriously, this is not a rhetorical question: WHO WAS IT, and how did this nightmare begin? Who or what is responsible, so that we might blame and/or maim them? Is it your parents? Educators? The Internet? Is it the same person(s) who told you to repeatedly spell-slaughter the word “whoa” by writing “woah”? I KNEW IT.

Look: both mistakes are so excruciating, it is mystifying how anyone could make them even once, let alone fill the tubes of the Internet with this nonsense. Simply looking at the word “woah” immediately causes tear-ducts to fill with blood, unborn babies to spontaneously abort themselves and a plague of locusts to fall upon the land. Hyperbole? NOT AT ALL.

Although other sites can offer an in-depth exploration of the rampant misuse of quotation marks, we thought it best to briefly review the basics here. Quotation marks are not used for emphasis. That is not why they exist, nor is it a neat thing they do on the side. There are lots and lots and lots and LOTS of different ways to express something emphatically. Quotation marks are not one of them.

That said: here is today’s “job” to avoid!

 

Got it. You want some…thing that is LIKE a girl to live with you for an unspecified price and the exchange of menial labor? Awesome. You also have a random capitalization fetish? Got it. It seems impossible that this could get any creepier!

 

Oh.

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

It got creepier.

But, to be fair… times are tough. I mean, sure, nobody wants to move in with a random stranger who uses the word “girl” even more repetitively than late-eighties NKOTB, but it’s rough out there. It can be hard to find a place to crash. At least this is a way to get your own space, your own bed, and– oh, I’m sorry, what’s that?

 

I get to sleep on a SOFA.

In your BEDROOM.

I mean, I do get access to the dinning room…. but come on, that’s the noisiest room in the house!

It certainly sounds like you have a great life. Is anything missing?

 

Oh! IS “ll” that’s missing l’il ol’ me??? ME, the stranger reading this on craigslist?? How flattering and not at all weird or inappropriate!

 

Two truly wonderful things about that paragraph:

1) The deferential respect for how your future couch-sleeping-slave’s sexual orientation might “turn out.”

2) The apparently sincere use of the word “sparkle”

So… there are a lot of questions that remain deeply, uncomfortably unanswered. I assume you will wrap up all the loose ends with your closing remarks?

 

Precisely my final question! Thanks!

Click here to read the full post for more “fun”. And hey: girls, “girls” and everyone else: AVOID THIS JOB.

(thanks to the two different ATJ readers who submitted this “job” post, Herbelem and Anonymous. You guys are “awesome”, and we “salute” you.)

New Kids on The Block

 

8 Replies to “Notable Quotables”

  1. Olivia. As we all know “girls,” particularly “girls” who turn out to be lesbian or bi, do not have “bodily functions.” So what would said “girl” do with a toilet?

  2. Just a comment about the New Kids picture. Wow…so many things wrong with it, so many things. What is Jon pointing at on Jordan? What is Jordan wearing? Overalls sans a shirt, ewwww. Why is Danny allowing Jordan to put his arm around him? Especially with the look Jordan is giving.
    Donnie, really? What the heck is going on with the wardrobe? I say he is the victim of the the original wardrobe malfunction.
    And, Joey, the first love of my life, how was I so blind to not see your poser ways.

  3. I’ve been misspelling “whoa” my entire life. Seriously. And it drives me absolutely bananas when anyone uses quotation marks to serve as emphasis. I’m so sorry!

  4. I would like to see the responses to this ad. After all, how can people take them serious? I’m sure the type of people that posted back were real winners also!

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