For the most part, I differentiate single and double quotation marks. I use the former to signal something that is figurative, non-precise, rhetorical, colloquial, and/or the like. I use the latter to show someone else's or my own words as they were written, with the anticipation or invitation that they be checked and/or verified, in order to aid toward clarity and/or accuracy.
In my first comment, I directly quoted the word "total," and in the second, I expanded it to "total safety." I argued against using the word "total" because is wasn't accurate. I did similarly toward your use of the word "every" within the phrase "every risk."
I've expressed no verifiable objection to either "old man" or "umpteenth, so in that sense, I can claim that your, "I take it..." interpretation is inapplicable. I still might or might not agree with any number or percentage of your expressed opinions, or share in your feelings similarly, and it might be in varying degrees wherever I do so, but none of that has been my purpose or focus here.
Note please, for one example, that I did not protest, "There is no such number as 'umpteenth'," even though that's technically true. I accepted it as a rhetorical expression.
I regard "total" and "every" differently, primarily because those exact terms may be invoked and argued in assessments or decisions made by rule-making or enforcement bodies in response to currently elevated consideration of what if anything to do about court-storming, and with under authority, and with what consequences, imagining that all would fall under application of risk-management principles as they perceivably apply to and affect many differently resourced & motivated stakeholders and constituencies in order to arrive at dispositions that will attempt govern the behaviors of imperfect beings...or something like that.
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