I found myself in need of an interrobang this week. I was replying to a reader’s email and wished to end with a salutation for the new year.
I also wanted to express surprise that I have lived to see time has gone on for so long.
I wrote: “all the best for the new year; how did it get to be 2024!?” The second part of the sentence was intended as both exclamation and a rhetorical question.
And that’s an interrobang: a combined exclamation mark and a question mark. It looks like one printed on top of the other: ‽
Rhetorical questions don’t always take a question mark in text, not least because there is the danger they might be mistaken for a normal question.
In 1962, for precisely this reason, Martin K. Speckter, head of an American advertising agency, wanted his adverts to convey surprised rhetorical questions using a single punctuation mark. So he invented one.
He named it “interrobang”, a combination of interrogatio (Latin for “rhetorical question”) and bang (American printers’ slang for an exclamation mark).
He intended it as the typographical equivalent of a grimace or shrug of the shoulders, for use when a copywriter wished to convey incredulity.
Mr Speckter was partially successful. His interrobang became available on some typewriters, and a few type founders included it in their typefaces.
But it was never fully accepted. My go-to dictionary, the 1969 Shorter OED, doesn’t include the word. Though it is in their current online version as a “non-standard punctuation mark”.
To their credit the 1979 (my favourite) and the latest, 14th edition, printed Collins Dictionaries list it.
The State Library of New South Wales still uses it as a logo.
I think there should be more punctuation marks. I’d like ways to indicate sarcasm, humour, anger, emphasis, intentional untruth, and many other flavours of tone in writing.
The written word’s greatest failing is that shades of meaning you can inject into speech by inflexion of voice, rise or softening of volume, a gesture, facial expression, or other subtle nuance, are difficult to express in text.
I think all-caps for emphasis is ugly. It would be useful to find an elegant way to denote a word or phrase you’d especially like to highlight.
We’ve all encountered occasions when an email sounds offensive, angry, provocative, or myriad other ways different from what was intended. We should have the tools to avoid this. Like emoticons, but for adults.
Is it too much to ask for the world to embrace the interrobang‽
Word of the week
Devel (noun)
A blow with stunning force. EG: “Let us all use the interrobang forthwith, and deal out a devel for the cause of expressive and more easily deciphered written language.”
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
