grammaticalism help me out here. where should the grammatically correct writer put the quotation marks when one uses the phrase /alternative medicine/? the bad astronomy guy used /"alternative" medicine/. hrm. that would imply an unusual meaning of /alternative/. and a normal meaning for /medicine/. i'm pretty sure that's not right. at the very least, /medicine/ must be in quotes. because /alternative medicine/ isn't real medicine. if it was real medicine it wouldn't be called /alternative medicine/. sheehs. i think /alternative/ is supposed to imply the quotes around medicine. ie that /medicine/ isn't what is usually meant. so no quotes needed. however, /alternative/ implies that it's equivalent. and it's not. so prefixing /medicine/ with /alternative/ isn't strong enough. so i guess the question boils down to: do you put /alternative/ in quotes or not? heh. /"alternative" "medicine"/ would be silly. /"alternative medicine"/ would imply it's not what /alternative medicine/ usually means. hrm. that's just confusing. /alternative "medicine"/ is probably best. because the meaning is clear. if you object to vaccines you can do this other thing. but it isn't real medicine. if the literature were required to use this form, alternative "medicine" would be seen in a fairly negative light. which is a good thing(tm). but it would make the alternative "medicine" crowd go all dancing burrs. so it's not likely. sigh. we can dream.  ¶ 8:00 AM