Sexed quotes

Sexed quote markOn the rare occasion that it comes up, I’ve always called them “sexed” quotes, but it seems I get a lot of funny looks when I do. So I turned to the oracle and found little to defend that use. Wikipedia’s article refers to them variously as “book quotes,” “curved quotes,” “curly quotes,” and, presumably thanks to Microsoft Word, “smart quotes.”

That’s not to say that there are no references to “sexed quotes.” That phrase draws 48 hits from Google, and “sexed quotation marks,” returns 6 hits. Does anyone know the source of the term? I know I didn’t imagine it. It must have been a teacher or editor somewhere along the line who used that phrase, and it stuck with me. But it may just be that I am a typographical pervert.

This entry was posted in General and tagged . Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

3 Comments

  1. Posted 6/8/2007 at 11:31 am | Permalink

    I never heard that before, I think you dreamt it. They are sexy, though. Sexy quotes ;)

  2. Posted 6/9/2007 at 10:33 am | Permalink

    Ya, Suely’s right.

  3. David
    Posted 3/14/2012 at 6:16 am | Permalink

    I’ve called them that for many years too (and get strange looks too). I can’t remember where I first heard the term, though!

Post a Reply to jason

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>