Air Quotes

A couple of posts ago I wrote about some grammar hang-ups that I have. As a result I heard from a number of people either here on this blog, on Facebook, via email, or in person, and more than one person told me that--as a result of that post--they now feel like they have to pay extra attention to their grammar before talking to me. I hate that. I got that a lot as an English teacher, and after seven years in a different job I'd just started to feel like people were saying and writing what they wanted to me without feeling a need to check themselves first. So I'm not going to write about grammar errors that bother me any more.

Instead, I'm going to write in this post about public speaking errors that drive me crazy!...

Like everyone else, I'm bothered by verbal tics, those little sounds that people throw into their public speech when they're composing the next words that they're going to say. "Uh" is the most typical of these tics, though for  the younger set the word "like" is just about as popular. But--if I'm honest--verbal tics don't really bother me all that much. I understand that--when speaking--sometimes our thoughts get ahead of our mouths, and as a result those tics happen.

There's really only one public speaking habit that drives me crazy, and it's the use of "air quotes." You know--a person is saying something, and that person wants to wants to show that the words are someone else's, or that he/she is using slang, and to do so the speaker uses two fingers of each hand to make these air quotes. This drives me absolutely bonkers, and once a speaker does this, I am through listening. I no longer have any respect for the person.

I guess that's not entirely true. I will notice when a speaker uses air quotes (You'd better BELIEVE I'll notice), and it will irritate me, but I'll let it slide when it happens ONCE. It's when it happens multiple times that I get truly annoyed, and I've had the pleasure on a couple of occasions of being around a speaker who overuses the air quotes WAY too much.

"Some so called 'EXPERTS,'" the speaker will say (flashing the two pairs of fingers while saying "experts"), "will state that their 'SCIENTIFIC THEORIES'" (again with the air quotes) "are really 'FACTS,'" (again) "but we know so much better than these 'EXPERTS.'"

Here's how much I hate air quotes. Just typing that example sentence in the paragraph above has gotten me ticked off.

When a speaker starts overusing air quotes (and let remind you that I think a single use is overuse), I honestly have a tough time staying in the room. If it's possible to politely get up and leave, I will do so. And it doesn't matter who the speaker is. If Jesus himself came back to earth and gave a sermon in my presence, I'd have a tough time listening and not interrupting.

"Don't forget," Jesus would say, "to 'LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.'" We should try extra hard every day to be a 'GOOD SAMARITAN.'  And stick with Me and I'll make you 'FISHERS OF MEN!'"

And what's even worse than someone who OVERuses air quotes is someone who MISuses air quotes. That is, someone who throws up an air quote at a point in a sentence when--if the sentence had been written--no quotation marks would have been used. Something like this: "I get really 'ANGRY' when people let their 'DOGS' go to the 'BATHROOM' in my 'YARD'!"

The next time you're around me, if you're in a mischievous mood, throw up two or three air quotes to see how I react. You'll see that I have no poker face.

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P.S. Found this online and thought I'd share...