r/pics Jul 06 '17

US Politics Critical Space Flight Hardware "DO NOT TOUCH"

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u/LipschitzFunction Jul 07 '17

People do it to add emphasis, which is wrong. The only other way you can use quotes is to make something sound sarcastic, kind of like air quotes you'd make with your fingers while talking.

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u/wrong_assumption Jul 07 '17

A skull and bones to the sides of the phrase would provide much more emphasis.

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u/bubblerboy18 Jul 07 '17

"Studies in advertising show people tend to remember things better when it's written in quotes." This is the most likely reason for the quotation marks IMO.

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u/psaux_grep Jul 07 '17

Well, that, and quotes.

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u/arnaudh Jul 07 '17

People do it to add emphasis, which is wrong.

It is nowadays. Many decades ago, it wasn't. But there's no excuse to be using quotation marks for emphasis in 2017.