I hate the quotation marks. More precisely, I hate it when they are used to sneak in the author’s negative opinion about something. This is often abused by the low-quality journos and is revolting. It immediately shows me that the author is retarded, or targets a retarded audience, or both. Let me explain.

Suppose you want to say that Navalny called to bomb Tbilisi. You can write just so: Navalny called to bomb Tbilisi. However, if a low-quality journo wants to demonstrate that this is a bad or ridiculous thing for Navalny to do, they may use the quotation marks: Navalny called to “bomb” Tbilisi.

Not all quotes are bad. Let’s refer to the type of quotes we criticize here as the “degenerate quotes.” Notice, for example, that the quotes used in the previous sentence are not the degenerate quotes. They were not used to demonstrate something said by a person whom I disagree with. Instead, they simply helped to understand that some new entity was introduced.

I am not saying that you must not include your opinion in your writing. I am not suggesting to remain neutral at all times. Calling to bomb Tbilisi is a terrible thing, and suppose you want to convey that. How do you convey that in our example sentence, “Navalny called to bomb Tbilisi”? The best solution is that you don’t. You can make your opinion obvious from the context. You don’t need to hold your reader’s hand and lead them along every little step like they are some child with disabilities. Don’t take your readers for idiots, unless you specifically write for that audience.

Not surprisingly, the degenerate quotes are often used by the russians. Let’s see an example:

“In various statements, he called for dividing Brazil into 4 parts, Armenia joining NATO, bombing Belgrade with NATO forces, dividing the BRICS countries, ‘decolonizing’ Russia and China, dismembering Israel…”

Notice the contrast: none of the actions the person called for were enclosed in quotes apart from the decolonizing of russia and China, which our retarded russian author tried to present as bad or ridiculous. In the context of russian propaganda, this is reasonable. Its power lies in passion and quantity, not in quality. And its target audience is not the smartest half of humanity, of course.

There are situations, however, when the degenerate quotes are seemingly impossible to avoid. Here is an example:

“As a race, Night Elves are typically honorable and just, but they are very distrusting of the ‘lesser races’ of the world.”

These may be hard to call the degenerate quotes even. First, they did not enclose something that was said, but rather something that was thought. Second, if we omit the quotes here, the meaning of the message will change: it will imply there are indeed some lesser races that the Night Elves distrust. Still, these quotes add the same bad aftertaste that the degenerate quotes usually do. So in this situation, I still advocate removing the quotes and rephrasing the sentence to retain its original meaning:

“As a race, Night Elves are typically honorable and just, but they are very distrusting of whom they consider the lesser races of the world.”

Oh my gosh, this is so much better. I no longer feel the amateur author trying to spit their opinion in my face, while I may still understand it from a broader context.

Okay now, I know that I may have used the degenerate quotes here and there, and I may use them again in the future. But I am an amateur author, and sometimes I write for an amateur reader. But, most importantly, THIS IS MY WORLD, so I can do whatever the heck I want. The degenerate quotes are most nauseating when they are used in a “professional” context, such as in media articles or Wikipedia pages.