<p>"Surprisingly, there are old comic book fans, a small army of them: adults wearing school ties and tweeds, teaching in universities, writing ad copy, writing for chic magazines, writing novels-who continue to be addicts, who save old comic books, who published mimeographed "fanzines" strange little publications deifying what is looked back on."</p>
<p>Why is the quotation marks around fanzines used to set off a specialized term??</p>
<p>I would assume it’s to highlight a term that might not be known by most individuals. Like “CCer’s” for example.</p>
<p>so, what exactly does “set off a term” mean??</p>
<p>“It was as though all streams everywhere quit running, <hanging> silently where they were to let the point be made”</hanging></p>
<p>Why does “hanging” most nearly mean “inclining”??</p>
<p>“To set off” means “to trigger” (to set off the car alarm, the fire set off the fire alarm). In a figurative way, it means to accentuate or provoke; at one point it is passive (the alarm is off), and at another point it is active (the alarm is going off/it has been set off)</p>
<p>“To set off a term” obviously isn’t something physical like “to set off a fire alarm.” Figuratively, however, it means something similar; to provoke or emphasize, or to cause to be active. Placing quotation marks around a word like “this” sets it off, makes it active, and emphasizes it.</p>
<p>“Fanzine” isn’t a word that we know, but we do know what the author is talking about – the publications of comic book fans. There happens to be a name to describe what he is talking about, but since not many people know it (because it is a specialized term), he says “fanzines” to emphasize it.</p>
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<p>Something that is inclined is bent or slanted. Figuratively, it describes something that is not straight, or not normal. To incline is to deviate from a normal course of action: a stream goes from running (normal and making noise) to not running (not normal and silent).</p>
<p>This definition is related to “hanging” in that if you throw a ball, it goes up, then down, but if it hangs or stops moving for a split second, it is not going through its normal course of action. The fact that something that “hangs” isn’t moving (like clothes hanging on a clothesline, or a banner hanging from the ceiling) means that it stops what is normal for it to do – to fall if it WASN’T hanged.</p>
<p>“He worked in his office awhile, then hanged silently (stopped working).”
“He was on the phone for awhile, then hanged up.”</p>
<p>^That is incorrect. Give me a dictionary where that definition is stated: that “inclining” means not normal. crazybandit’s response seems confusing as well. What is interesting is that Merriam-Webster provides “hanging” as a near antonym([Incline</a> - Synonyms and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary](<a href=“54 Synonyms & Antonyms of INCLINE | Merriam-Webster Thesaurus”>54 Synonyms & Antonyms of INCLINE | Merriam-Webster Thesaurus)) for “incline”. A better response would be that “hang” has an obscure definition on Merriam Webster–see [Hang</a> - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary](<a href=“http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hang]Hang”>Hang Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster) and the 3rd definition: I hung my head in shame. I don’t see how the 3rd definition is related to the other definitions, but it’s there, nonetheless. I suppose that I would have eliminated the other answers if you had given us the other answer choices.</p>