| | "Quote, Unquote" (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07) |
 | | As you surmise, the two ways of making verbal quotes are identical in intent, and in fact identical with the gesture of drawing "quotes" in the air with one's index and middle fingers (the "V" fingers) on both hands. |
 | | The pragmatic sense is to bracket the item in question in exactly the same way philosophers do with what they call "scare quotes", that is, a warning that the writer does not take responsibility for the correctness of any description, thus effectively saying the writer believes something like the reverse of the description. |
 | | However, if you are doing scare quotes in speech, and thereby taking your chances with the listener's short-term memory, chances are you're targeting only one word or phrase -- one phonological unit in any case -- and you don't really need to mark the end; it's obvious. |
| www-personal.umich.edu /~jlawler/aue/quote.html (479 words) |