How to Use Quotation Marks to Show Sarcasm
The other reason one might use quotation marks in English is to show sarcasm. For example, let’s say Natalie and Mike are friends. They hang out a couple of times a week to watch their favorite TV show or play Rock Band. Natalie’s girlfriends suspect that something more is brewing between the two of them. Natalie is chatting online with her friend Kendra. Observe:
Kendra: What are you doing tonight?
Natalie: I’m going over to Mike’s to watch Lost.
Kendra: Yeah right.
Natalie: What?
Kendra: Nothing. You just seem to be over there “watching Lost” an awful lot.
In this case, Kendra does not believe that Natalie and Mike are actually watching Lost together. She is implying by the use of her quotation marks that the two of them are actually doing something else.
Or here’s another example: Leaf is an avant-garde, hippie artist who gave up his internal combustion engine some time in the late 90s. He has been experimenting lately, however, with vehicles that run on compost and human excrement, but he can’t get a date because no girl wants to be seen in his “car.” Girls, you see, do not see this vehicle as a legitimate car, so when they discuss it, they use the quotation marks to indicate their sarcasm.