Speaking of Gruber, he also posted, via John August, a link to a very funny "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks. I've always found these funny--they used to be all over the place at the schlocky electronics stores in Midtown.

A few years ago when I was friends with a Japanese couple and we did some language exchange, I once tried to explain scare quotes to them. I said, "it's like sarcasm--if I say someone is my "friend" [using air quotes], it's like saying he isn't really my friend--he might really be my enemy, sort of secretly." They looked at me like I was utterly insane. I tried a few more examples, but each time I could tell it was only taking them further from understanding. Finally I gave up, saying I would try to think of a better explanation.

They then took a turn trying to explain a Japanese concept to me. I don't remember exactly what they said, but the impression was like this: "Say a crow flies over a village, and then a man starts his car, and goes ten feet, but instead of going ten feet in reverse, he says to his son, 'you have disappointed me.' That's kyoukatsu." I looked at them like they were utterly insane. Then I realized that examples like this have to be very carefully thought out, because what may seem to the explainer like a perfectly clear-cut illustration with no extraneous information, will often seem to the explainee like a hopeless fog of twists and turns, in which it's impossible to extract the salient points. These were, however, relatively difficult concepts (at least mine was--I still have no idea what they were talking about), and we should resist the temptation to put it down to a difference between Western and Eastern thinking.

P.S. Don't get mad at me if kyoukatsu is an obscene and incredibly offensive word in Japanese. I just made it up.

P.P.S. I just realized that every time I tried to use the Japanese word omoshiroi in conversation with these friends to describe something as interesting, they chuckled as if I had meant it sarcastically, as if it had scare quotes. Maybe I should have explained it that way! But I never could figure out how to say 'interesting' without it sounding sarcastic, unless I was misinterpreting their reaction.