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Comment by nkoren | Hacker News Reader

When I moved from the US to the UK, the use of quotation marks in news headlines was something that confused me. In the US, these would be "scare quote", with the quotation marks basically standing in for the words "so-called". In the UK, that is NOT their meaning. The quotation marks mean "we are not ourselves in a position to verify this, but it is the words that a source has told us". Very different meaning -- and once I got used to it, I think the UK use of language in this case is more honest and useful.

tl;dr: two countries, divided by a common language.

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This is like this in most of Europe: when in "quotes", it is not the journalist, but the person who said something. For example, Obama said "Yes we can". He did not say yes we can, he said "Yes we can".

It is not about the quotes being verified or unverified. It is about something said by somebody, that you are reporting.

This is precisely what the word quote means!

It’s not so much ‘we are not in a position to verify’ as the fact that the person who said the thing, and what they said, is itself newsworthy.

If you’re reporting that “Government sources say Houthis have ‘taken control’ of an island” then the fact that government sources used the words ‘taken control’ is itself interesting.

The headlines “Russia ‘will be defeated’ in Ukraine says Zelensky”, “Russia ‘will be defeated’ in Ukraine says Putin”, and “Russia ‘will be defeated’ in Ukraine says Taylor Swift” all tell of vastly different news events.

Is it really a different meaning? Isn't the implication that they tried, and failed, to independently verify the claim?

No, it's a statement of who is making the claim.

I understand that ostensibly it is a statement of who is making the claim. But doesn't the media organization have an expectation to research and validate such claims? And so if they didn't, then that must mean that they weren't able to?

I don't think reputable US news outlets use quotation marks in the way you say they do.

Does “so-called” not mean “words that someone has told us”?

Huh? That's how quotation marks are used here in the US too

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