inspect is a method that will return a string with literal representation of the object it is called on.
puts (1..5).to_a.inspect
=> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
puts :name.inspect
=> :name
by the way, using inspect to print an object is so common that there is a shortcut for it, the p function:
p :name #this will first exec :name.inspect, then puts the returning string.
this is equivalent with:
puts :name.inspect