More Disturbing Quotation Marks

You know how things sometimes come in waves? Like, for instance, you read a book about Singapore and then the day you finish it you meet someone from Singapore and then you get a telephone call, a wrong number, from Singapore, and then you buy a book and notice that it was printed in Singapore and then you go to a party and they're serving Singapore Slings? Is there a proper name for this phenomenon, like there is for the phenomena of synchronicity and serendipity?

It's been happening to me lately with unnecessary quotation marks. (I suppose it's not as surprising as all that because, frankly, unnecessary quotation marks are pretty ubiquitous. But I still have the eerie feeling that the universe is trying to tell me something. Haha. Get it? The universe is trying to "tell" me something?) 

The other day at our local hospital I noticed the "Cardiac Investigation Unit." And then a few days later I discovered The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. Today, while looking at the Amazon listing for The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups -- how come I don't already own this book? isn't someone supposed to give it to you on your 21rst birthday? -- I came upon another intriguing instance: an Amazon reviewer who is a "Psychiatrist."

Would you feel more or less comfortable discussing your psychological problems with a "psychiatrist"  -- or with a  psychiatrist? Imagine asking the "psychiatrist" for her qualifications. "Well, I 'went' to 'Johns Hopkins'" she might say, making air quotes around her face as she talks. Then again, a diagnosis of say, "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder" or "Dissociative Indentity Disorder,"  sounds much less serious than the same mental illness without the quotation marks.

Comments

[Avital GC]

Oh yes, I know the phenomena, could it be a conspiracy?! It's probably our mind, though: it's like a pregnant woman noticing all the pregnant woman around her-there are always pregnant women around , but she never pays attention until she's pregnant too. Then again, maybe it is a conspirandiptsync.

[Nela]

Haha this is funny and "ironic." Aaron learned about quotation marks in school this week and last night as he was practicing his reading for a test he would read along and then YELL during any dialog. I asked him why he was yelling and he said that his teacher told him that quotation marks were to indicate when people were talking. I guess that's how he thinks people talk...mental note to myself to stop "discussing things" with my husband when Aaron is around.

[Loth]

I have a theory that all the superfluous apostrophes have been breeding, hence the unnecessary quotation marks. All that punctuation offspring has to go somewhere, you know.

[Lisa]

Over at readerville.com we call that phenomenon "plate-o-shrimp" -- from Repo Man:

"A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, "plate," or "shrimp," or "plate o' shrimp" out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness."