diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7692a5c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+# `shq`
+
+`sh` quoting for your `sh` scripts.  Or for your rust stuff.  Whichever.
+
+## Usage
+
+`shq` is mostly interesting for use when escaping unknown strings so here's
+an example of that:
+
+```bash
+trap "$(shq echo "your first arg was $1 and your random token was $RANDOM")" 2
+```
+
+This will echo your first arg safely as well as a random number
+whenever you press Ctrl-C.  Significantly, these will be the values at
+the time the trap was created.
+
+## How it works
+
+In `sh`, a single quote (`'`) opens a string which may contain any character
+other than another single quote.  A single quote may be included in a double
+quoted string.  And finally, two strings may be concatenated by simply
+shoving them together.  Thus, we get `echo 'this string'"'"'s very cool'`
+which produces `this string's very cool`.  An alternate version which uses
+`echo 'this string'\''s very cool'` is possible.  I don't like `\`.
+
+## Comparison to other tools
+
+`coreutils`'s as well as possibly other implementations of the `printf` shell
+scripting tool have a %q format specifier which does largely the same
+thing as this tool.  Some of these use backslashes which may be more or less
+compatible with your particular use case than the reliance on single quote
+strings.
\ No newline at end of file