Air Quote

[Bodington]

Has anyone actually answered? This poor person didn’t ask for a thousand ✌︎opinions✌︎ on rewriting their story, did they?

I do have to commend you on discerning the exact motivation I had in posting this thread in the first place. Perhaps a more appropriate example might serve. When watching a fictional television program or movie, the viewer is instantly aware when a character is employing an air quote. That begs the question what is in the written script which would instruct the actor or actress to make the air quote gesture?

 

[MadeleineSinha]

You have to be kidding me

They said ‘air quotes’
Not ‘hare quotes’

 

[RejectReality]

There is no standardized or widely recognized method of conveying this through punctuation or symbol in text. You can convey emphasis with italics. Single quotes will be understood by most readers as emphasis, and perhaps even sarcasm or disdain. The only way to convey the gesture is through dialog tags.

Unless the word you want to emphasize with the gesture is the last word, it's probably not going to read smoothly. If you need them to do it twice in a sentence... good luck with that.

If you want to establish your own convention with some ascii character, then good luck with that as well. Stopping a reader in their tracks with something they don't immediately understand isn't typically great for engagement.

 

[jsmiam]

Someone here will remember who it was, sadly it’s escaping my brain: A regular here in the AH successfully overrode fonts to visually highlight (in a very unusual font) the dialog whenever an alien or monster or something spoke. (I’ll remember who it was right after someone says who it was. ;-)

It’s possible the same approach might work here assuming any interest in what I said earlier, although some finer points of how the web works might still get in the way.

 

[Bodington]

Someone here will remember who it was, sadly it’s escaping my brain: A regular here in the AH successfully overrode fonts to visually highlight (in a very unusual font) the dialog whenever an alien or monster or something spoke. (I’ll remember who it was right after someone says who it was. ;-)

It’s possible the same approach might work here assuming any interest in what I said earlier, although some finer points of how the web works might still get in the way.

Now that seems like a very good suggestion. Should your memory revive and discover the method I certainly would be interested in adopting this measure.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Someone here will remember who it was, sadly it’s escaping my brain: A regular here in the AH successfully overrode fonts to visually highlight (in a very unusual font) the dialog whenever an alien or monster or something spoke. (I’ll remember who it was right after someone says who it was. ;-)

It’s possible the same approach might work here assuming any interest in what I said earlier, although some finer points of how the web works might still get in the way.

Paging @MediocreAuthor !

 

[samhasstories]

I do have to commend you on discerning the exact motivation I had in posting this thread in the first place. Perhaps a more appropriate example might serve. When watching a fictional television program or movie, the viewer is instantly aware when a character is employing an air quote. That begs the question what is in the written script which would instruct the actor or actress to make the air quote gesture?

I'm hardly an authority on script formatting, but I would guess it varies as much as the responses here. Probably in some there's simply an emphasis given in the dialog, and the actor interprets that as they feel fits the character - whether with air quotes or a certain tone.

I can only think of one time I've explicitly denoted air quotes in a story, and I just noted the motion in description:

"She's 'into it,'" Nicole said, using air quotes, stepping closer still until she stood right in front of me. Looking up at me, but still making me feel small.

Other times I've used italics to note emphasis, or just single quotes to indicate there's a quote within dialog. Perhaps a reader visualizes characters using air quote when single quotes are given, but if I don't think the gesture necessary I'll leave it up to the reader to decide.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Paging @MediocreAuthor !

Someone here will remember who it was, sadly it’s escaping my brain: A regular here in the AH successfully overrode fonts to visually highlight (in a very unusual font) the dialog whenever an alien or monster or something spoke. (I’ll remember who it was right after someone says who it was. ;-)

It’s possible the same approach might work here assuming any interest in what I said earlier, although some finer points of how the web works might still get in the way.

I appreciate the mention, but I'm not sure how well exaggerated diacritics would work for air quotes.

Lol

 

[KeithD]

Air quotes are a providing of emphasis, so I think the closest guidance if you don't identify them as air quotes by describing action would be to put the phrase in italics.

 

[Britva415]

I don't understand why anyone is considering any "solution" which doesn't involve actually narrating the air-quote action. Nobody's going to know the character is physically making air-quotes if you don't come out and say so, and you don't need weird, nonstandard, easily misunderstood typography for that.

 

[Bramblethorn]

If trying to indicate air quotes is coming out clunky, it's worth pausing and thinking about how specific you need to be.

Take a sentence like this:

"Tom can't come today, he's off doing 'homework' with his 'cousin'."

It's clear that the speaker is suggesting sarcasm about 'homework' and 'cousin'. Without further information, we can't tell exactly how they're suggesting it. They could be signalling air quotes, they could be rolling their eyes, they could be doing some mixture of the three. But often all that's really needed for the story is the sarcasm; it might not matter just how it's being conveyed.

Sometimes it does, and if the difference between a gesture and an eye-roll or a tone of voice matters to the story, then you need to find some way to specify air quotes: "James air-quoted 'homework' and 'cousin'."

But sometimes it doesn't, and then you don't actually need to solve the question. Maybe the sarcasm is all that needs to be conveyed?

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Was flicking through an old chapter of mine and found this - the speaker is apologising for flippantly using the phrase 'punishment beatings':

"Like 'honour killings'." He does air quotes. "Shouldn't dignify them with a label."

 

[KeithD]

Was flicking through an old chapter of mine and found this - the speaker is apologising for flippantly using the phrase 'punishment beatings':

"Like 'honour killings'." He does air quotes. "Shouldn't dignify them with a label."

Yeah, thinking about it, I think quotation marks would be clearer than the italics I previously suggested.

 

[MyBareTorso]

What can I say other than that you are a connoisseur of true female pulchritude.

Actually, make that twelve...

 

[jsmiam]

Now that seems like a very good suggestion. Should your memory revive and discover the method I certainly would be interested in adopting this measure.

regarding the ole “try this” topic: try this? (Make a one line story and preview in your drafts folder. the graphic starts with the ampersand and ends with the semi-colon. The <sup> parts make it a little smaller and render as a superscript.

hello, ^&#9996;friend ^&#9996;

hello, <sup>&#9996;</sup>friend <sup>&#9996;</sup>

 

[RejectReality]

regarding the ole “try this” topic: try this? (Make a one line story and preview in your drafts folder. the graphic starts with the ampersand and ends with the semi-colon. The <sup> parts make it a little smaller and render as a superscript.

hello, ^&#9996;friend ^&#9996;

hello, <sup>&#9996;</sup>friend <sup>&#9996;</sup>

High probability the <sup> tag will get automatically stripped, and possibly result in a rejection for HTML. Even if you request it and Laurel allows it, that's going to be hit and miss. It's overriding standard behavior and requires extra time spent on the submission.

The ascii codes can sometimes even result in an HTML rejection. I had one get bounced back to me for that years ago. It went through without change once I resubmitted with a note after clarifying with Laurel, but it can be a rejection trigger.

 

[jsmiam]

High probability the <sup> tag will get automatically stripped, and possibly result in a rejection for HTML. Even if you request it and Laurel allows it, that's going to be hit and miss. It's overriding standard behavior and requires extra time spent on the submission.

The ascii codes can sometimes even result in an HTML rejection. I had one get bounced back to me for that years ago. It went through without change once I resubmitted with a note after clarifying with Laurel, but it can be a rejection trigger.

Good point, particularly on the <sup> tag, lots of recent comments that it doesn’t fly.

The codes probably would work (Also based on several recent successes with that.)

So big handed air quotes, should the op decide to give that a try.