American English uses both single and double quotes! For different things!
Near as I can tell, American English has many more and more strictly enforced rules than British English, which I can say from experience plays hell on American copy-editors who have to edit material from British authors coming from environments are both different and less complex! (and that’s not even getting into places where American sources are hardly consistent, like the Oxford comma).
Getting back to quotes, American uses single quotes for ‘scare quotes’ or other types of sarcastic quotes. But it uses double quotes for both quotes and literalisms, such as when people use “scare quotes” to talk about any kind of non-literal quote. And of course whenever you use quotes inside quotes, you swap so you never have direct nesting of the same quote type (I of course don’ t know which of these rules is differnent in British; theo nly thing I remember for sure is that you all use commas differently than we do in practice, sometimes seemly just for pauses outside dialogue where no comma is reasonable in American english or where we might throw a semicoon or colon).
But in the above, I think strict American English would agree that this is 6 levels of scare quote (for extra emphasis), and NOT double quotes, since you don’t use double quotes for scare quotes outside of a literal quotation.
not someone else
Triple double apostrophes is a minor piece of internet dialect!
thejeff
Maybe it’s 4 levels, since they’re nested. Single inside of double inside of single inside of double.
HueSatLight
we can use double quote marks for scare/irony. It’s quotation that must be double quotes, with nested quotes being single marks.
Poem and song titles get single quotation marks.
More importantly, single quotes are for when its a byte-sized char and double quotes are when it’s a null terminated string of chars.
thejeff
The only time it really matters. The rest will be read as understood the vast majority of the time. Screwing that last one up will lead to big problems.
ahecht
I assumed she was using wikipedia’s markup language, where six single-quotes would make something bold, italic, and in quotes.
Be honest here. Have you ever, during a spoken conversation with someone, enclosed some word or words in air quotes, with your fingers? You know, if I said, “I “like” like someone.” And when I verbalize that first like, I hook my index and middle fingers in the air, making ‘air quotes’.
If/when you did that, how many fingers did YOU use? That’s how many quotes you should use. Those are my rules, and not the ‘official’ rules…
Positive. Carla comes from actual obscene wealth, not the weak wealth that depends on fawning for others’ power. Carla is also (usually) actually effective at what she puts her mind to, instead of taking credit when she tries and fails, but what she was aiming for happens anyways.
thejeff
Carla also had a good relationship with her parents, rather than the abusive levels of neglect Jennifer dealt with.
Thag Simmons
Jennifer’s family are also quite rich on a local scale. It doesn’t match Carla’s uber rich tech company family
I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re in for, a Carla character development arc. Her immaturity’s being played up, we’re not seeing the parts of her day where she’s not acting childish. It works well with a comment section that’s often like a bunch of angry goldfish.
Like a lot of the characters, her flaws come across to me as defense/coping mechanisms that she grew into and has trouble not turning them off. She does care about other people, but can’t express that without making a joke (kind of like Walky). She just only has one joke (not that one joke). Her one joke does come from being raised obscenely rich.
At some point relatively recently Carla’s defining trait in the eyes of the commentariat went from “trans” to “rich”. I’m not sure exactly when or why, but it kind of fascinates me.
It really is her defining characteristic! Just like QC Claire’s are bad puns, competence, and a need for order. #theLibrarian
I’m hopeful it’s because being trans no longer seems particularly unusual. Whether that’s greater society or Carla no longer being the most buy trans character, I don’t know. But more representation is a good thing.
Mark
I fear it’s because it’s not safe to despise someone for being trans, but it’s always open season on wealth.
That IS interesting, but not because of any ‘acceptance’ thing. It’s basically shifting from one crude stereotype to another. For me, Carla’s chief trait is ‘Obnoxious’, which is something she at least achieves based on her actual personality and character, rather than something achieved by her parents or her doctor.
I’d say that her most defining trait is her apparent narcissism, not that she’s rich. But rich is definitely #2 in there.
Its probably because these are the things that come up most often when it comes to Carla. That she’s trans has been relevant in maybe two plotlines, when Mary blackmailed Ruth with her relationship with Billie in order to dodge punishment for her anti-trans bigotry, and Carla’s much deserved and epic retaliation for it.
But her parents being gig industrialist executives? That’s popped up a lot. And almost every strip with Carla involves her demanding attention and praise from everyone around her. So, those become her defining characteristics.
Wraithy2773
Oh, and the other reason the “Carla’s Rich” stuff comes up in the comments a lot?
Its because its amusing to point out that one of the few unambiguously positive parental examples in the strip seem to be the gig economy industrialists that would otherwise be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. 🙂
thejeff
Rephrase then – her narcissism/obnoxiousness is her defining trait, but the commentariat’s response to it has shifted to focusing on her being rich.
Before relatively recently (maybe with the time skip?) it was either taken just at face value “Carla’s an asshole”, or more generously understood as a deliberate defense mechanism tied to her being trans.
Now it’s just “she’s narcissistic because she’s rich”.
Which is strange cause she constantly goes out of her way to “not” leverage her wealth in a way that a rich person could do in order to be purposely obnoxious. Like, the one time her money has even been kind of an issue was when she loaned Sarah her card for a three hour long zoom ride.
When Carla makes a variety of large signs with her name on them, nobody comments “that’s such an engineer way of being annoying.” But her doing anything at all is somehow now “such a rich person thing to do.” Like people aren’t seeing a fictional person but just a dollar sign.
It’s a detail that I’ve latched onto because I think it’s interesting, but it’s far from the defining attribute of her character. You could radically alter her backstory and have her come from a much poorer background and still have her be recognizable as herself
I’m not sure that rich is a requirement. I know (but am not friends with) several people who aren’t rich, but always need to be the center of attention. They don’t actually shout “look at me” but they do pout if you don’t. And these are people in (I believe) their 50s. For that matter, one of my sisters (mid-60s) isn’t quite that bad, but everything has to always be about her – she just learned our other sister’s cancer has come back, and apparently said she wants to come visit her because she hadn’t gone on a vacation in a while.
Actually, ya know? It could! Carla could openly express her egocentrism without really offending anyone, because Charlie wouldn’t be listening. And not listening would just make her even more a crush object to Carla.
And then it could all go down in flames, e.g.:
“Oh hey Carla, I’ve met someone who kinda gets me and I really have a good feeling about it; take care…”
Carla acts like sociopathic narcissist, but I am pretty sure that’s just a cover for her being a big softie and a shield against rejection. A very obnoxious cover and a very very annoying shield, but none the less.
all things considered at least she’s not corning charlie, physical grabbing would be drawing the line but i’m sure ppl would still be annoyed if someone waved their hand in their face like she did with charlie before
Carla, Booster was ready to lend you a hand for the low low price of some teasing.
It’s gone significantly up, methinks. COME ON GURL, like they didn’t get you read in .5 seconds on their first day :’D inappropriate party trick as it was and all.
i’m sure booster will use their skills to work it out better than carla approaching charlie on her own again, even having a therapy of genuine vulnerability or so, tho it’d be a conflict of interest, then again it’d be good if they can determine if carla’s just egotistical versus “ok, ur legit toxic for my sister, stay away”
The price going significantly up IS probably getting Carla to admit some stuff about herself before lending their help. You’ll be decent and capable of NON FACETIOUS VULNERABILITY AND OTHER LONG WORDS before they wingmate for you, or so help them!
isn’t technically approaching her sibling less straightforward if she’s already directly said ‘pay attention to me’ to charlie’s face? even tho it’s a bit delayed tho, i suppose booster being in the room to help facilitate a relationship would be nice
189 thoughts on “Scoff”
Ana Chronistic
“What about stock options?”
Nathan
It takes real skill to verbalize, uhh *squints* twelve (?) quotation marks at once.
Opus the Poet
That’s only like 3 opening and 3 closing quotes.
pig
To a Brit, or to anyone else whose language uses single quotes rather than double quotes, it would look like twice as many!
Joshua Kronengold
American English uses both single and double quotes! For different things!
Near as I can tell, American English has many more and more strictly enforced rules than British English, which I can say from experience plays hell on American copy-editors who have to edit material from British authors coming from environments are both different and less complex! (and that’s not even getting into places where American sources are hardly consistent, like the Oxford comma).
Getting back to quotes, American uses single quotes for ‘scare quotes’ or other types of sarcastic quotes. But it uses double quotes for both quotes and literalisms, such as when people use “scare quotes” to talk about any kind of non-literal quote. And of course whenever you use quotes inside quotes, you swap so you never have direct nesting of the same quote type (I of course don’ t know which of these rules is differnent in British; theo nly thing I remember for sure is that you all use commas differently than we do in practice, sometimes seemly just for pauses outside dialogue where no comma is reasonable in American english or where we might throw a semicoon or colon).
But in the above, I think strict American English would agree that this is 6 levels of scare quote (for extra emphasis), and NOT double quotes, since you don’t use double quotes for scare quotes outside of a literal quotation.
not someone else
Triple double apostrophes is a minor piece of internet dialect!
thejeff
Maybe it’s 4 levels, since they’re nested. Single inside of double inside of single inside of double.
HueSatLight
we can use double quote marks for scare/irony. It’s quotation that must be double quotes, with nested quotes being single marks.
Poem and song titles get single quotation marks.
More importantly, single quotes are for when its a byte-sized char and double quotes are when it’s a null terminated string of chars.
thejeff
The only time it really matters. The rest will be read as understood the vast majority of the time. Screwing that last one up will lead to big problems.
ahecht
I assumed she was using wikipedia’s markup language, where six single-quotes would make something bold, italic, and in quotes.
Chris
Be honest here. Have you ever, during a spoken conversation with someone, enclosed some word or words in air quotes, with your fingers? You know, if I said, “I “like” like someone.” And when I verbalize that first like, I hook my index and middle fingers in the air, making ‘air quotes’.
If/when you did that, how many fingers did YOU use? That’s how many quotes you should use. Those are my rules, and not the ‘official’ rules…
Decidedly Orthogonal
Three on one hand, and my thumb on the other.
Just an Armadillo
“To hell with your human touch, I am a Queen! Or a goddess? Point is you should be bowing right now!”
Dante
“Dreadfully sorry, I believe in no higher power, 0.01% included”
Angel
imagine if booster solved this problem by having charlie approach carla, saying nothing hugging her and walking off nonchalantly lol
Quirdry Tawks
*sad raising of eyebrows*
*shrug*
*back to reading*
Quirdry Tawks
Ooh, Option Two:
*sigh*
“Carla. You tire me. Please go away.”
Mark
Aaaaand, the Carla we all know and, uh, is back.
Benjamin Geiger
In the immortal words of Colin Mochrie: “You tolerate me! You really, really tolerate me!”
Thag Simmons
Sometimes you can really tell that Carla grew up insanely rich
True Survivor
Cool new Avatar. Is it from something?
Thag Simmons
One of the villains from the new Superman show. It’s pretty good!
Schpoonman
“Haven’t you read the paper?”
NGPZ
I think that’s Silver Banchee from the new Superman cartoon
ktbear
Huh, never commented about MY new avatar, even to say its rubbish. Im offended I tells ya
Decidedly Orthogonal
Is this Carla’s IRL account?
Vulcanodon
That’s because it’s so cute we’re intimidated
NGPZ
I do like a well drawn furry, heehee
Nono
Rich, narcissistic, inflated ego…
Are we sure she’s not just Jennifer?
Thag Simmons
I’d say they express those shared traits very differently
darkgloomie
Carla lacks two key qualities for being Jennifer: curves, and alcoholism (recovered or otherwise).
Decidedly Orthogonal
Positive. Carla comes from actual obscene wealth, not the weak wealth that depends on fawning for others’ power. Carla is also (usually) actually effective at what she puts her mind to, instead of taking credit when she tries and fails, but what she was aiming for happens anyways.
thejeff
Carla also had a good relationship with her parents, rather than the abusive levels of neglect Jennifer dealt with.
Thag Simmons
Jennifer’s family are also quite rich on a local scale. It doesn’t match Carla’s uber rich tech company family
Angel
i mean it’d be unlikely to happen but it would be funny if carla did hand booster 5k for a meeting
FacelessDeviant
I’m not sure Carla grew up at all. That is like a five year olds way of thinking.
Thag Simmons
Unlike many five year olds Carla is very tall and able to safely operate a welding torch
Needfuldoer
Grew up? Yes.
Matured? Eeeehhh…
HueSatLight
I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re in for, a Carla character development arc. Her immaturity’s being played up, we’re not seeing the parts of her day where she’s not acting childish. It works well with a comment section that’s often like a bunch of angry goldfish.
Like a lot of the characters, her flaws come across to me as defense/coping mechanisms that she grew into and has trouble not turning them off. She does care about other people, but can’t express that without making a joke (kind of like Walky). She just only has one joke (not that one joke). Her one joke does come from being raised obscenely rich.
thejeff
At some point relatively recently Carla’s defining trait in the eyes of the commentariat went from “trans” to “rich”. I’m not sure exactly when or why, but it kind of fascinates me.
Nicoleandmaggie
It really is her defining characteristic! Just like QC Claire’s are bad puns, competence, and a need for order. #theLibrarian
I’m hopeful it’s because being trans no longer seems particularly unusual. Whether that’s greater society or Carla no longer being the most buy trans character, I don’t know. But more representation is a good thing.
Mark
I fear it’s because it’s not safe to despise someone for being trans, but it’s always open season on wealth.
Daniel M Ball
That IS interesting, but not because of any ‘acceptance’ thing. It’s basically shifting from one crude stereotype to another. For me, Carla’s chief trait is ‘Obnoxious’, which is something she at least achieves based on her actual personality and character, rather than something achieved by her parents or her doctor.
Mark
+1
Wraithy2773
I’d say that her most defining trait is her apparent narcissism, not that she’s rich. But rich is definitely #2 in there.
Its probably because these are the things that come up most often when it comes to Carla. That she’s trans has been relevant in maybe two plotlines, when Mary blackmailed Ruth with her relationship with Billie in order to dodge punishment for her anti-trans bigotry, and Carla’s much deserved and epic retaliation for it.
But her parents being gig industrialist executives? That’s popped up a lot. And almost every strip with Carla involves her demanding attention and praise from everyone around her. So, those become her defining characteristics.
Wraithy2773
Oh, and the other reason the “Carla’s Rich” stuff comes up in the comments a lot?
Its because its amusing to point out that one of the few unambiguously positive parental examples in the strip seem to be the gig economy industrialists that would otherwise be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. 🙂
thejeff
Rephrase then – her narcissism/obnoxiousness is her defining trait, but the commentariat’s response to it has shifted to focusing on her being rich.
Before relatively recently (maybe with the time skip?) it was either taken just at face value “Carla’s an asshole”, or more generously understood as a deliberate defense mechanism tied to her being trans.
Now it’s just “she’s narcissistic because she’s rich”.
Amelie Wikström
Which is strange cause she constantly goes out of her way to “not” leverage her wealth in a way that a rich person could do in order to be purposely obnoxious. Like, the one time her money has even been kind of an issue was when she loaned Sarah her card for a three hour long zoom ride.
When Carla makes a variety of large signs with her name on them, nobody comments “that’s such an engineer way of being annoying.” But her doing anything at all is somehow now “such a rich person thing to do.” Like people aren’t seeing a fictional person but just a dollar sign.
Thag Simmons
It’s a detail that I’ve latched onto because I think it’s interesting, but it’s far from the defining attribute of her character. You could radically alter her backstory and have her come from a much poorer background and still have her be recognizable as herself
Otl1973
I’m not sure that rich is a requirement. I know (but am not friends with) several people who aren’t rich, but always need to be the center of attention. They don’t actually shout “look at me” but they do pout if you don’t. And these are people in (I believe) their 50s. For that matter, one of my sisters (mid-60s) isn’t quite that bad, but everything has to always be about her – she just learned our other sister’s cancer has come back, and apparently said she wants to come visit her because she hadn’t gone on a vacation in a while.
BBCC
XD That should work out.
Quirdry Tawks
Actually, ya know? It could! Carla could openly express her egocentrism without really offending anyone, because Charlie wouldn’t be listening. And not listening would just make her even more a crush object to Carla.
And then it could all go down in flames, e.g.:
“Oh hey Carla, I’ve met someone who kinda gets me and I really have a good feeling about it; take care…”
“WHAT?!”
True Survivor
Carla acts like sociopathic narcissist, but I am pretty sure that’s just a cover for her being a big softie and a shield against rejection. A very obnoxious cover and a very very annoying shield, but none the less.
Imogen
just! do! what! she! wants!!
Angel
all things considered at least she’s not corning charlie, physical grabbing would be drawing the line but i’m sure ppl would still be annoyed if someone waved their hand in their face like she did with charlie before
Clif
The surface level is only a small part of the conversation. Carla is engaging in self-parody.
The question is if Carla is intentionally engaging in self-parody.
ValdVin
I’m buying some of that, thinking of Joyce’s shower shoes, and also the Ruth/Jennifer “get in there and do things to your girlfriend” episode.
Mturtle7
I’m quite certain that this is iterally word for word what’s going through Booster’s head right now!
Opus the Poet
I don’t know but that’s nowhere close to it.
Kyrik Michalowskk
Careful Carla, your Vegeta is showing. Pride is nice and all, but don’t say something stupid because of it.
Oh who the fuck am I kidding? Carla will willingly say something stupid and still have her pride.
NGPZ
*the urge gets stronger* ?
ProtoMan
“You see Booster, you’re not dealing with the average rich kid…”
Kyrik Michalowskk
+1
I’m actually rewatching all of it right now, I’m at episode 25, watching Nail play one final prank on Piccolo.
Angel
Carla: You’re either perfect or you’re not me
Schpoonman
We’re all watching the commentaries, right?
Dante
Carla, Booster was ready to lend you a hand for the low low price of some teasing.
It’s gone significantly up, methinks. COME ON GURL, like they didn’t get you read in .5 seconds on their first day :’D inappropriate party trick as it was and all.
Angel
i’m sure booster will use their skills to work it out better than carla approaching charlie on her own again, even having a therapy of genuine vulnerability or so, tho it’d be a conflict of interest, then again it’d be good if they can determine if carla’s just egotistical versus “ok, ur legit toxic for my sister, stay away”
Dante
The price going significantly up IS probably getting Carla to admit some stuff about herself before lending their help. You’ll be decent and capable of NON FACETIOUS VULNERABILITY AND OTHER LONG WORDS before they wingmate for you, or so help them!
StClair
*squirms* noooo, anything but that!
NGPZ
Well… at least she’s straightforward. An admittedly admirable quality to someone like me who has trouble reading subtlety, hee hee ?
Angel
isn’t technically approaching her sibling less straightforward if she’s already directly said ‘pay attention to me’ to charlie’s face? even tho it’s a bit delayed tho, i suppose booster being in the room to help facilitate a relationship would be nice
Bogeywoman