GrammarBlog

Friday, 5 October 2007

Interrobang‽

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Despite the annoyingly frequent use of multiple punctuation marks, it's never acceptable to double up on question marks or put a question mark next to an exclamation point. However there does seem to be a call for a mark to indicate an exclaimed question.

For example, What??andWhat?! both indicate a measure of tone that is difficult to achieve with a single question mark or exclamation point.

Yet according to Grammar Girl:

You're supposed to pick the terminal punctuation mark that is most appropriate and use just one. Is your statement more of a question or more of an outburst?

Why choose? Now one can use the delightfully named interrobang, which is basically a cross between a question mark and an exclamation point.

The main drawback is that if you want to use it you have to dig around in wingdings 2 trying to find the damned thing.

What‽ What the hell‽

I quite like it, what do think?

NB: Apologies if you can't see the interrobang. Why don't you try using a decent browser?

Labels: Grammar Girl, interrobang, punctuation

posted by Gez at 10:04 pm 74 Comments

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