Happy National Grammar Day! Personally, I think this is a holiday that deserves to be celebrated more than once a year! In honor of this very special day, today we’re talking about some unconventional punctuation marks!
Interrobang (?!) – An interrobang is a punctuation mark that many people use without knowing it even has a name! It’s the combo of a question mark and exclamation point, and was first proposed by the head of an advertising agency in 1962. It was actually quite in vogue during the 1960s, appearing in magazine and newspaper articles.
Percontation Point (⸮) – The percontation point is used at the end of a rhetorical question. It was proposed by a printer named Henry Denham way back in the 1580s. It’s usage, however, petered out in the 17th century.
SarcMark™ – The SarcMark™ is used to show sarcasm. How useful would that be in an email or text?? Like so many things, it was born out of necessity. Its creator was writing an email to a friend, and in an attempt to be sarcastic, realized there’s no punctuation mark in the English language to denote sarcasm! It looks like a swirl with a dot in the middle of it, and it was trademarked and made its debut in 2010.
Snark Mark (.~) – A cousin to the SarcMark™, the Snark Mark was created to denote verbal irony. It’s much easier to write and type, as it’s simply a period followed by a tilde.
In 1966, a French author named Herve Bazin proposed a series of 6 new punctuation marks. And boy, did he cover all of his bases! Some of his proposed punctuation included:
Love Point (
) – This one looks like 2 question marks facing each other and sharing the same dot. As the name implies, it would be used to show affection, like if you’re wishing your partner a happy anniversary.
Conviction Point ( .svg)
) – If you’re really, really confident in what you’re writing, you could use a conviction point! Better than writing IN ALL CAPS TO GET YOUR POINT ACROSS, RIGHT?!
Doubt Point (
)- The opposite of a conviction point, the doubt point is used to end a sentence with a hint of skepticism.