14 Punctuation Marks That You Never Knew Existed
Where have you been all my life, the Interrobang‽ Less so, the Asterism, despite the awesome name. How many of these did you know already? Be honest.
1. Dagger
Also called an Obelisk. This bad boy (on the left), and its two-headed friend (on the right) the Double Dagger or Diesis, represents a javelin, which is cutting out extraneous stuff from your text. Its primary use through the ages has been to mark out superfluous repetitions in translation, though nowadays it mostly just stands in as a kind of footnote.
2. Caret
Also called a Wedge, an Up-Arrow, and a Hat, which is cute. The word caret is Latin for "it lacks," which is convenient, because the caret is primarily used to indicate something that's missing from the original text.
3. Solidus
Not to be confused with a slash! The Solidus is also called a Shilling Mark (presumably by old British dudes in top hats) and it is at a much steeper angle than a boring old backslash. Back before decimilization took the world by storm, the Solidus was used to set apart different values of currency from each other.
4. Asterism
The Asterism has an awesome name, a cool look, and a really lame usage. It's for indicating minor breaks in text. It can also mean "untitled," apparently.
5. Guillemets
Guillemets means "Little Williams," which is interesting but unhelpful. They're named after a 16th Century French printer. Their primary role is in non-English languages that use them as quotation marks.
6. Sheffer Stroke
Mainly used for Boolean functions and propositional calculus. Truth tables. Stuff like that.
7. Because Sign
This one's so cool. It's like the "Therefore" sign, but upside-down, and it means because.
8. Section Sign
To indicate sections in a text, mostly by lawyers, who are too good for regular punctuation marks. You probably knew this one, but it's cool-looking, so.
9. Exclamation Comma
Just because you're excited about something doesn't mean you have to end the sentence.
10. Question Comma
The interrogative version of its best friend the Exclamation Comma.
11. Interrobang
It's a combo-Exclamation/Question mark, and it's awesome. It is the glorious punctuational equivalent of saying OMGWTF?!
12. Hedera
Hedera is Latin for ivy. Why that is relevant here is not very clear at all, but this little glyph was used back in the day to mark paragraph breaks. Seems like it was probably really hard and annoying to draw, but it looks nice.
13. Pilcrow
This one's also for paragraph breaks. Most people will be familiar with it, though not with the fact that it's called a Pilcrow. It's also referred to as "The Blind P," which sounds like a good name for some hopelessly twee indie band. "Pilcrow" is the Middle English word for "Paragraph." You will never be able to use that fun fact in real life.
14. Snark
Also called the Percontation Point and the Irony Mark, this one's used to indicate that there's another layer of meaning in a sentence. Usually a sarcastic or ironic one. So it is essentially a tool for smart people to use to make stupid people feel even stupider. Which makes it the best punctuation mark of all.
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There'ss an extra level of irony to Lewis Carroll's 'The Hunting of the Snark'‽
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Apprentice hot metal compositor for 6 years back in the 1960's. We had to learn these and a few more. Memories lost in time, like teardrops in the rain.
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In response to how to get this punctuation on your iPhone. Have you downloaded the “Punctuate” app? Companies use interesting punctuation in text message marketing all the time. There has to be a way to get it on your iPhone. Check out that app.
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Just tell me how to get them on my iPhone…
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Interesting.
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Must have Snark!!
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While I love the list, I take umbrage with the label ascribed to “†”. The mark is not a “dagger”, but, properly, a “misericord”. (It's like the difference between “hari-kiri” and “seppuku”; the first is the vulgar form of the latter.)
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“YOU NVER KNEW EXISTED”
Yikes, Buzzfeed. maybe edit your title before making such a broad speculation.
muhmuhmuh-douche laugh
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For years I used to call a section mark § a seeos for some reason, it's sometimes used as a footnote mark. A broken bar ¦ also features in most character sets, any idea what it's for? Before e-mail what was @ used for? Theres is also an odd generic currency symbol ¤, does that have a name?
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http://copypastecharacter.com/ - awesome site to copy and paste punctuation!
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I just discovered these in class today! Didn't know their meaning though til now. Awesome
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The Hedera is called that because it looks like ivy. The heart shape is a leaf, the rest the vine!
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If some of these are new to you at age 22 you may need to go back to school. The Interrobang though is fantastic.
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punctuation love
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Around here we often called the caret a circumflex.
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Exclamation comma! Where have you been all this time?! I've needed you! See, I needed you right there at the end of that first sentence!
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Human language amazes me. Make these mandatory on all keyboards, stat!
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I think most people know 1-4 & 6. And I wish the interrobang and snark were in my symbols palette. The others I've never even seen before.
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guillements = thought-speak marks #animorphs
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favourites are the interrobang and the snark. Oh and the Hedera, for no reason other than it just plain looks nice. I already knew of interrobangs though.
