Hello and welcome! Can you tell an actual quotation from a paraphrased summary of a third party’s position – just by looking? Can you tell the difference between a newspaper trying to teach you a new word and a newspaper trying to make you fear one? The you’re an ideal contestant for The Great Quotes Quiz, where contestants pit their wits against the subtlest form of headline rhetoric on Fleet Street.
In today’s quiz, you will asked to detect which of the following four journalistic devices are being deployed in a series of headlines:
Actual quotes Quotations taken verbatim from the mouth of a person in the news.
Scare quotes (or sneer quotes) Quote marks placed around a word or phrase to single it out for the reader’s fear or contempt.
Neologism quotes Quote marks placed around an unfamiliar word to signal that although it is new to the reader, it is important and will be explained in due course.
Claim quotes Not actual quotations at all, but quote marks placed around the summary of an assertion made by a third party, about which the newspaper is reserving judgment.
This is not always easy – sometimes it’s impossible to distinguish what kind of headline you are looking at without reading the article. (For example, scare quotes can sometimes perform a secondary function as neologism quotes, inviting the audience to dislike a new word.) But as you work your way through the questions, keep in mind some identification tips from the headline-spotter’s field guide:
Actual quotes
• Significantly more likely to be attributed than unattributed: if quote marks and an attribution are both present in the headline, the likelihood of it being a real quote is high.
• More likely to contain a colourful or controversial turn of phrase, in which case the choice of words may well be the story. Claim quotes, by contrast, are usually written in workaday journalese.
Scare quotes
• Nearly always identifiable from the negative rhetorical loading of other words in the headline: for example, the word in quotes may be described as “bizarre”, “disturbing”, “baffling” and so on.
Neologism quotes
• The word in quotes is either recently coined or completely unfamiliar, but presented neutrally, without the negative rhetoric of the scare quote.
Claim quotes
• Significantly more likely to be unattributed than attributed: in British headline culture, the quotes are shorthand for an attribution.
• More likely to use standard headline language than be unusual or colourful.
So, if everyone’s ready, let’s begin!
Q1

A. Actual quote
B. Scare quote
C. Neologism quote
D. Claim quote
Q2

A. Actual quote
B. Scare quote
C. Neologism quote
D. Claim quote
Q3

A. Actual quote
B. Scare quote
C. Neologism quote
D. Claim quote
Q4

A. Actual quote
B. Scare quote
C. Neologism quote
D. Claim quote
Q5

A. Actual quote
B. Scare quote
C. Neologism quote
D. Claim quote
Q6

A. Actual quote
B. Scare quote
C. Neologism quote
D. Claim quote
Q7

A. Actual quote
B. Scare quote
C. Neologism quote
D. Claim quote
Q8

A. Actual quote
B. Scare quote
C. Neologism quote
D. Claim quote
Q9

A. Actual quote
B. Scare quote
C. Neologism quote
D. Claim quote
Q10 – for double points

First quote
A. Actual quote
B. Scare quote
C. Neologism quote
D. Claim quote
Second quote
A. Actual quote
B. Scare quote
C. Neologism quote
D. Claim quote
How did you do? Scroll further down for the answers:
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Answers
Q1: A. Actual quote: (NB the online headline has now changed and quote has been demoted to the standfirst.) Note the vividness of the language and the presence of attribution in the headline.
Q2: D. Claim quote: This is a slight hybrid: someone quoted in the piece does actually say the word. But the absence of attribution in the hed, and the bald quotation of the single word, means the primary function of the quote marks is to signal journalistic impartiality about the claim being made.
Q3: D. Claim quote: (Headline shown was for print: link is to the online version.) A classic claim quote that reproduces the first paragraph of the story with the quote marks standing in for the attribution.
Q4: C. Neologism quote: Perhaps familiar enough not to need quotes any more, but in any event the phrase is on its own in the homepage headline’s kicker, without any prejudicial rhetoric to colour your view of it.
Q5: B. Scare quote: Note the fear-inducing tenor of the whole headline, especially the “so-called” preceding the quote.
Q6: A. Actual quote: Slightly trickier, as the attribution in the headline is a little ambiguous, but it is present, and the words quoted are vivid.
Q7: C. Neologism quote: This is, possibly, a borderline scare quote – breadcrumbing is after all described as a “mistake” – but it is more obviously a neologism quote of an unfamiliar term. Note too that the overall tone of the headline is instructional rather than angry.
Q8: B. Scare quote: “Self-styled”. Scare quotes are not always unfair: they can serve the useful purpose of signalling widely held doubts about unlikely claims.
Q9: A. Actual quote: Not just one attribution but two – one of them is almost bound to have said it! This is a classic interview-format headline – name-colon-quote, or quote-colon-name – which are always direct quotes, or should be.
Q10: A. Actual quote and B. Scare quote: The link from the first quote to its attribution is very direct, which gives you confidence that the dietitian did use those exact words; “so-called” is a classic scare-quote tactic.