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Miscellany № 81: Toward a Taxonomy of the Interrobang

September 18, 2017

Remember the interrobang‽ Of course you do! That’s the kind of rhetorical question for which the interrobang is perfectly suited. I’ve been thinking about Martin K. Speckter’s punctuation mark of late for a couple of reasons: first, a Google alert turned up an obituary of a Minnesotan poet named J. Otis Powell‽. I hadn’t known of Powell‽ previously — I’d have loved to have been able to ask him about his surname! — but Minnpost explains his unusual name as follows:

Miscellany № 80: irony archaeology

August 13, 2017

In the wake of my last post (Miscellany № 79: jè?), I was doing a bit of digging into the history of emoticons — those recumbent smileys used to signify happiness (:)), sadness (:(), mehness (:|) and so on — when I came across Scott Fahlman’s personal website. Fahlman is the man famous for inventing the emoticon and, although I’ve written about him before, both here and in the Shady Characters book, in both cases I skated over the exact circumstances of his invention because, well, I didn’t know what they were. Having found his webpage at Carnegie Mellon University, however, I now find that the whole story has been there for the reading for a decade or more!

The Book at the British Library on Monday 3^rd July

June 25, 2017

A quick reminder today that I’ll be giving a talk at the British Library on Monday 3rd July (just over a week to go!), and that tickets are now on general release. It’d be great to see some Shady Characters readers there — if you do come along, please don’t hesitate to say hello!

Miscellany № 79: jè?

June 11, 2017

Always nice to ease oneself back into the swing of things with a new mark of punctuation, don’t you think? I was pleased to come across the following announcement a little while ago:

On May 27, at the international design conference TYPO Berlin two new typefaces will be launched that are designed as part of the TilburgsAns project. Both typefaces – TilburgsAnsText and TilburgsAnsIcons – contain a new punctuation mark. This mark is based on the Tilburg dialect word ‘jè’ (which sounds more or less as ‘yeah’) that is used as a confirmation but often expresses some doubt or mild irony. The jè-mark bridges the gap between the exclamation point and the question mark.

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The Book: A Talk at the British Library on Monday 3^rd July

May 28, 2017

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be giving a talk about books and book history at the British Library’s Knowledge Centre, 96 Euston Road, London, at 7pm on Monday 3rd July. The talk will be about an hour long and there will be plenty of time to ask questions if you so desire. (The bar will be open later, too, until 10pm — I’ll be needing a stiff drink afterwards, I’m sure!)