Published: December 23, 2008 11:33 pm      

LUCINSKI: Editing out the ‘air quotes’

“Saturday Night Live” is the funniest television show in the history of broadcasting. This is the Opinions page and that’s my opinion and I’m sticking with it.

What prompted this chuckle down memory lane are something called air quotes. Here’s the connection:

One of the funniest cast characters ever on SNL, the late Chris Farley, would, from time to time, play a hapless TV commentator who would appear during the show’s “Weekend Update” segment. That’s the fake, very funny newscast that airs around midnight.

Dressed in a loud tie and a louder plaid jacket, Farley would be quite animated, punctuating his comments with visual quotation marks in all the wrong places. The air quotes made a pretty funny bit even funnier; the studio audience (and, presumably, the one at home) roaring with each wiggle of the index and middle fingers on each hand.

One of the reasons I found it so hilarious: I hate air quotes. They serve no purpose, they’re invariably used at the most inappropriate times and serve as a crutch to those who otherwise have serious difficulty in making a point.

There’s only one thing worse than air quotes: Air quotes in print. I see them all the time in my role as managing editor of the Niagara Gazette.

The reporters and editors on the Gazette staff generally know better. They use quotation marks for what they are intended; setting off word-for-word comments from those being interviewed or those said in a public setting.

The Associated Press Stylebook, the bible on such things in the journalism business, concurs. It also OKs the use of quotes around the formal names of books, movies and shows (such as “Saturday Night Live” but not SNL) as well at the titles to other material. The AP also approves quotes around nicknames (Richard “Dick” Lucinski), in a sense of irony (The “debate” turned into a free-for-all.) and the use of unfamiliar terms (Broadcast frequencies are measured in “kilohertz.”). Other than their main purpose, setting off statements made word-for-word, that’s it for quotation marks.

Where I see air quotes in print are in Letters to the Editor and Guest Views submitted by readers and newsmakers. It seems that, in some cases, they think their arguments are simply not good enough to stand on their own so the writer feels he or she has to put quotation marks around random words in order to give them “emphasis” (see, I hate that). That last set of quotation marks would be edited out. It would be a privilege to do so.

So, if you want to “express” your “opinion” to the Gazette in the form of a “Letter to the Editor” or a “Guest View,” please do so without using the crutch of the “air quote.” It will save you the bother of typing them and save me the bother of editing them out.

Here’s a guideline: Once you’ve completed your masterpiece, look it over for extraneous quotation marks. Imagine Chris Farley reading them on “Saturday Night Live.” If using his fingers as quotation marks makes you laugh, edit them out. Do us both a favor.

Dick Lucinski is the managing editor of the Niagara Gazette.