I exaggerate for effect. Although thanks to Martin von Wyss, an Australian geographer, cartographer and punctuation enthusiast, we’re on the cusp of interrobangs visible from space even if they aren’t technically in space. I came across a tweet of Martin’s a few weeks ago, and if you take a second to click on that link you’ll see exactly why I was keen to get in touch.
The best thing about running Shady Characters, bar none, is when a reader alerts me to a genuinely novel punctuation mark. A symbol I haven’t seen before, perhaps, or one that fills a niche I hadn’t ever considered. Ned Brooks checked both these boxes when he posted to the Shady Characters Facebook page to tell me about the so-called quasiquote. I’ll let Ned introduce this fantastic mark of punctuation:
A true miscellany for your perusal this week! On with the show.
First, a punctuation story that self-destructed almost as soon as it appeared. In mid-April, Levi Stahl, a publicity manager at the University of Chicago Press, posted to his blog about “The first emoticon?”. Stahl had come across a familiar-looking pairing of ‘:)’ in a 1648 edition of a poem by Robert Herrick. The lines in question went as follows:
I’m very pleased to say that Michele Buchanan, owner of getthepoint.me and creator of its new marks of punctuation, got in touch this week to discuss her project. Her three new marks — the ironic or sarcastic asterisk (*), the equivocal tilde (~), ’) — sparked quite a discussion last time here at Shady Characters, and it’s great to have Michele add her voice to the debate.
Hot on the heels of the Sartalics’ resurrection, and barely a decade on from the Great Sarcasm Mark Bonanza of the Noughties (I’m hoping that this sobriquet catches on), another new sarcasm mark has swum into view. It has brought friends.