clear without further context. The term scare quotes may be confusing because of the word scare. An author may use scare quotes not to convey alarm, but to signal a semantic quibble. Scare quotes may suggest or create a problematization with the words set in quotes. Criticism Some experts encourage writers to avoid scare quotes because they can distance the writer and confuse the reader. Editor Greil Marcus, in a talk at Case Western Reserve University, described scare quotes as "the enemy", adding that they "kill narrative, they kill story-telling . . . They are a writer's assault on his or her own words." Scare quotes have been described as ubiquitous, and the use of them as expressing distrust in truth, reality, facts, reason and objectivity. Political commentator Jonathan Chait wrote in The New Republic, "The scare quote is the perfect device for making an insinuation without proving it, or even necessarily making clear what you're insinuating." In 1982, philosopher David Stove examined the trend of using scare quotes in philosophy as a means of neutralizing or suspending words that imply cognitive achievement, such as knowledge or discovery. In speech In spoken conversation, a stand-in for scare quotes is a hand gesture known as air quotes or finger quotes, which mimics quotation marks. A speaker may alternatively say "quote" before and "unquote" after quoted words, or say "quote unquote" before or after the quoted words, or pause before and emphasize the parts in quotes. These spoken methods are also used for literal and conventional quotes. See also Evidentiality Hedge Irony punctuation Quotation Sic Air quotes References Punctuation Rhetoric Doubt