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
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.
