What if English had a punctuation mark for sarcasm?

Or a symbol specifically for rhetorical questions?

Or even a mark that meant love?

For centuries, writers, printers, and philosophers have tried to solve a quiet problem in language: written words struggle to convey tone. In speech we have inflection, pacing, and expression. On the page we have only letters and a handful of punctuation marks. That gap has inspired generations of thinkers to invent entirely new symbols for irony, disbelief, affection, and astonishment.

In this episode, we explore the strange history of modern punctuation that was proposed but never adopted. We also explore how ton incorporate these interesting symbols into your writing.

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Sources

Bazin, Hervé. Plumons l’Oiseau (1966).

Denham, Henry. Early typographic proposals for rhetorical punctuation (1580s).

Speckter, Martin K. “Making a Point, or What’s the Story with the Interrobang?” TYPEtalks Magazine, 1962.

Parkes, Malcolm B. Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West. University of California Press, 1992.

Wilkins, John. An Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language. London, 1668.

Unicode Consortium. Unicode Character Database and historical punctuation documentation.

Smith, Keith Houston. Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks. W. W. Norton & Company, 2013.

Houston, Keith. Shady Characters: Ampersands, Interrobangs and Other Typographical Curiosities. Profile Books, 2013.