Punctuation Scare Quotes

I apologise if you all know this, but the point is many, many people do not. Why else would they open a large play area for children, hang up a sign saying "Giant Kid's Playground", and then wonder why everyone stays away from it? (Answer: everyone is scared of the Giant Kid.)

First thing I'd do is make sure the poor newbie demigods don't have to suffer through the orientation film." All conversation stopped. "What orientation film?" Will Solace asked. Nico looked puzzled. "You know ..." He glanced side to side, clearly uncomfortable with everybody watching him. Finally he cleared his throat and sang in a warbly voice to the tune of "The Hokey Cokey": "It lets the demigods in! It shuts the monsters out! It keeps the half-bloods safe, but turns mortals all about! It's Misty, and it's magic, and it makes me want to shout: the border is all about!" He punctuated the last line of the song with some half-hearted claps. We stared at him in stunned silence. "Nico." Will patted his boyfriend's arm. "You're scaring the other campers." "More than usual," Julia Feingold muttered under her breath. "Oh, come on," Nico protested. "You've all heard that annoying song, right? It's from Welcome to Camp Half-Blood." Nobody responded. "The orientation film," Nico added. We shared a group shrug. Nico groaned. "You mean I just sang in public and ... I'm the only one who's ever seen that stupid film?" "So far, anyway," said Connor Stoll.

No," he said, leaning back to take my face in his hands and dropping another soft kiss on my lips. "All I've wanted since you limped out of my life the first day I met you was to have you back in it. Does that scare you?" I stood on tiptoe to return his kiss. "Not even a little bit. Thank you, Tanner Graham." He smiled. "For what?" "For being patient. I'll make it worth it." "You've always been worth it," he said punctuating his opinion with another kiss... Tanner smiled down at me, tightening his hold. "Thank you." "For what?" "for being you. I love you, Pepper.

We went about our usual routines – combat practice, volleyball practice, archery practice, strawberry-picking practice (don’t ask), lava-wall-climbing practice … You’ll find we practise a lot here. We would have spent the evening in the usual way, too, with a campfire sing-along, if not for an offhand comment Nico di Angelo dropped at dinner. We were talking about what changes each of us would make if we ran the camp, and Nico said: ‘First thing I’d do is make sure the poor newbie demigods don’t have to suffer through the orientation film.’ All conversation stopped. ‘What orientation film?’ Will Solace asked. Nico looked puzzled. ‘You know …’ He glanced side to side, clearly uncomfortable with everybody watching him. Finally he cleared his throat and sang in a warbly voice to the tune of ‘The Hokey Cokey’: ‘It lets the demigods in! It shuts the monsters out! It keeps the half-bloods safe, but turns mortals all about! It’s Misty, and it’s magic, and it makes me want to shout: the border is all about!’ He punctuated the last line of the song with some half-hearted claps. We stared at him in stunned silence. ‘Nico.’ Will patted his boyfriend’s arm. ‘You’re scaring the other campers.’ ‘More than usual,’ Julia Feingold muttered

I startle, breathing faster, grateful he can only sense the general direction of my feelings and not more than that. For a moment I actually want to say no. No, I’m not scared. I’m petrified. Because being this close to you is doing things to me. Strange things and irrational things and things that flutter against my chest and braid my bones together. I want a pocketful of punctuation marks to end the thoughts he’s forced into my head.

You know, usually when people are scared, they leave. Why won’t you? Why haven’t you?” “Because . . .” Because the money is good. Because I had to, for Jasper’s sake. The answers come to me quick and easy, but then, lying always has. The truth is harder: Because I dreamed of Starling House long before I ever saw it. Because sometimes when the light slants soft through the west windows and turns the dust motes into tiny golden fireflies I like to pretend the house belongs to me, or that I belong to it. Because Arthur Starling gave me a coat when I was cold and a truck when I was tired and he uses way too much punctuation in his texts.

Scared?" he asked a few minutes later. Willow glanced up in surprise. "Scared of what?" "Me." "Should I be?" "You're an attractive woman practically alone with a man who's reputation is questionable." When she didn't repsond, he moved out of the shadows to stand over her. He restated his question. "Are you worried?" His stance and narrow-eyed expression were almost menacing. Was his move meant to intimidate her? The thought miffed her. She abruptly stood and moved closer, staring up at him defiantly. "I don't scare easy. 'Sides, I can take care of myself." His smile was rueful. "Against a man my size?" "My brothers taught me tricks to make up for my smaller size-if you'll remember correctly." Rider scowled. "I was caught off guard that day. What you did wasn't a very ladylike thing to do, you know." Willow's ire flared. "You got a real thing about this ladylike stuff, don't you, mister?" She punctuated each word with a jab of her finger against his chest. "Well,let me tell you something. When a gentleman forgets to be a gentleman, I reckon a lady can forget to be a lady." Rider captured her finger in his hand, surprising her with his smile. "You know, you're absolutely right. I can't argue with the truth; it would't be gentlemanly. Shall we call a truce and agree to be friends?"" Willow tried to tug her finger out of his grasp but he held it tight. "Well?" he prodded. "We can call a truce, but I ain't ready to call you friend." He retained his hold on her finger. "Friendly acquaintances, perhaps?" His grin was infuriating, but her finger was going numb. "Maybe," she relented. "Well,that's better than nothing, I suppose." He released her stiff finger, and she shook it behind her back to restore the circulation.

My mother never seemed to listen to much music, but she loved Barbara Streisand, counting The Way We Were and Yentl as two of her favorite films. I remembered how we used to sing the song "Tell Him" together, and skipped through the album until I found it on track four. "Remember this?" I laughed, turning up the volume. It's a duet between Babe and Celine Dion, two powerhouse divas joining together for one epic track. Celine plays the role of a young woman afraid to confess her feelings to the man she loves, and Barbara is her confidant, encouraging her to take the plunge. "I'm scared, so afraid to show I care... Will he think me weak, if I tremble when I speak?" Celine begins. When I was a kid my mother used to quiver her lower lip for dramatic effect when she sang the word "tremble." We would trade verses in the living room. I was Barbara and she was Celine, the two of us adding interpretive dance and yearning facial expressions to really sell it. "I've been there, with my heart out in my hand..." I'd join in, a trail of chimes punctuating my entrance. "But what you must understand, you can't let the chance to love him pass you by!" I'd exclaim, prancing from side to side, raising my hand to urge my voice upward, showcasing my exaggerated vocal range. Then, together, we'd join in triumphantly. "Tell him! Tell him that the sun and moon rise in his eyes! Reach out to him!" And we'd ballroom dance in a circle along the carpet, staring into each other's eyes as we crooned along to the chorus. My mom let out a soft giggle from the passenger seat and we sang quietly the rest of the way home. Driving out past the clearing just as the sun went down, the scalloped clouds flushed with a deep orange that made it look like magma.

This curve, which looks like an elongated S, is variously known as the logistic, sigmoid, or S curve. Peruse it closely, because it’s the most important curve in the world. At first the output increases slowly with the input, so slowly it seems constant. Then it starts to change faster, then very fast, then slower and slower until it becomes almost constant again. The transfer curve of a transistor, which relates its input and output voltages, is also an S curve. So both computers and the brain are filled with S curves. But it doesn’t end there. The S curve is the shape of phase transitions of all kinds: the probability of an electron flipping its spin as a function of the applied field, the magnetization of iron, the writing of a bit of memory to a hard disk, an ion channel opening in a cell, ice melting, water evaporating, the inflationary expansion of the early universe, punctuated equilibria in evolution, paradigm shifts in science, the spread of new technologies, white flight from multiethnic neighborhoods, rumors, epidemics, revolutions, the fall of empires, and much more. The Tipping Point could equally well (if less appealingly) be entitled The S Curve. An earthquake is a phase transition in the relative position of two adjacent tectonic plates. A bump in the night is just the sound of the microscopic tectonic plates in your house’s walls shifting, so don’t be scared. Joseph Schumpeter said that the economy evolves by cracks and leaps: S curves are the shape of creative destruction. The effect of financial gains and losses on your happiness follows an S curve, so don’t sweat the big stuff. The probability that a random logical formula is satisfiable—the quintessential NP-complete problem—undergoes a phase transition from almost 1 to almost 0 as the formula’s length increases. Statistical physicists spend their lives studying phase transitions.

I jab him in the chest with my index finger to punctuate the words that come out of my mouth. “Stop. Feeling. Sorry. For. Your. Self.” He doesn’t like the chest jabbing. He starts walking again. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself, Sloane. I’m feeling guilty.” He says the word as though the emotion is an unwelcome houseguest who’s shown up on his doorstep and refuses to leave. “Well, you’re gonna have to suck it up because I don’t need you to feel guilty, Zeth. I’m not angry with you anymore . I’m in love with you. And you’re just scared because you know you feel the same way, too.

Just as it does in nature, this rare punctuation event dramatically altered the nature of our portfolio. We were able to buy companies at prices and in quantities we never thought possible. For example, in table 9.3, check out the discount at which we bought WNS, a business we have known well (since it is in our portfolio) since 2008. In February 2020, it was trading at almost $74 per share. Within a few weeks, by March 2020, the pandemic scare had crushed the stock, allowing us to deploy almost $100 million at only $46 per share! Similarly, we bought Thermax, a business we had been tracking for more than a decade, at a 45 percent discount to its previous high in early 2018.

I startle, breathing faster, grateful he can only sense the general direction of my feelings and not more than that. For a moment I actually want to say no. No, I’m not scared. I’m petrified. Because being this close to you is doing things to me. Strange things and irrational things and things that flutter against my chest and braid my bones together. I want a pocketful of punctuation marks to end the thoughts he’s forced into my head. But I don’t say any of those things. Instead, I ask a question I already know the answer to. “Why would I be scared?” “You’re shaking,” he says. “Oh.” The two letters and their small, startled sound run right out of my mouth to seek refuge in a place far from here. I keep wishing I had the strength to look away from him in moments like this. I keep wishing my cheeks wouldn’t so easily enflame. I keep wasting my wishes on stupid things, I think.