Those crazy pronouns

Revisiting ethnic profiling 12/8/05 – "From any angle, racial profiling is still wrong" – Dawn Turner Trice in Chi Trib says she’s heard from readers on how to stop "them" from hurting "us." These are her quote marks, and I swear, this is the strangest use of quotes I have seen in a long time.

If she’s giving exact words, she’s doing it for a pair of damn pronouns.

If she’s distancing herself from these pronouns, she really ought to say why, since the them-us distinction is elementary, to say the least.

Or is she showing quote marks as comedienne Joan Cusack and lesser performers indicate by raising two fingers on each hand and giving them a shake, with a zany look?

Who knows? Trice goes oral-speech on us, flouting written-word conventions as if she doesn’t even know about them. You might say she translates the spoken word directly to the printed page without making it "writing," if you catch my "drift." (Wink-wink)