As a grammar “nut,” haphazardly-placed quotation marks tend to “annoy” me greatly. They just “jump” out at me and really mess up the “flow” of whatever I’m reading. Sometimes people use them for “emphasis,” which never made any sense, but other times it seems that people use them truly at “random” to make their text look more interesting.

When they’re not “quoting someone else’s words,” I tend to read them as “air quotes,” as something you’d say with over-dramatic winks to imply that the exact opposite of what you were saying were the case. The underage kids drank “apple juice” at the party, and people “upgraded” from Windows 98 to Windows ME when it came out.

So it’s little wonder that my friends and I cracked up laughing when an on-campus eatery put up a sign: “Fresh” Sushi! Of course, the local seafood place we used to drive by that one day changed its sign from “Fresh Seafood” to just “Seafood” was equally as amusing. (Needless to say, we came to avoid eating any seafood in the area since it was apparently all of questionable freshness.)

But today, I saw a little sign for someone’s home business that may trump the “fresh” sushi sign. Someone’s car bore a sign: Computer “Guy,” with a phone number to call for service.

Let me go on record as stating that I don’t discriminate. Male or female, gay or straight, it wouldn’t matter if I were looking for someone to fix my computer. Heck, I even blogged about supporting transgender rights a while ago. (What ever happened to that bill anyway?) But all I know is that, if I ever invite someone into my home to work on my computers, I’m going to hire someone whose advertisement doesn’t pose troubling questions.