"Misquotes" - My Rant for the Day!

Why do people put words in "quotes?" (and, I'm being sarcastic with the use of the word quotes; read on)  I've never understood it!  It is overused, overrated, misunderstood, abused, and quite frankly, stupid.  Use quotation marks [ “ ” ] to set off material that represents quoted or spoken language. Quotation marks also set off the titles of things that do not normally stand by themselves: short stories, poems, and articles.  Period.  Or, should I say, "Period."  See what I mean.  "Stupid."  And, to make matters worse, some individuals will take it a step further, when they are actually trying to quote someone else, and MISQUOTE, using quotation marks!  If it isn't an EXACT "quotation," lose the quotation marks.  Of course, there are always the thieves who don't use quotation marks, purposefully stealing others' material to use as their own.  Plagiarism - a different topic for another time.

I don't know if English grammar and usage have been tossed aside in school, or people are just lazy.  Oh, and that's another point - the word "quote" is a verb, not a noun.  "Quotation" is a noun.  More importantly, to the best of my knowledge, there is no such word as "quotate."

A very good friend of mine recently made a valid point - the English language has been dumbed down almost to the point of no return.  I'm not quoting her, but that was her point.  Language can be such a beautiful thing, and we misspell it, misconstruct it, yes, we dumb it down to nothing.  We are lazy.  It doesn't take that much effort to write a decent sentence.  "Duh."