Alert reader Abbie Miller notified me of a holiday that I've failed to celebrate lo these 33 years, but I shall neglect it no longer! Today is National Punctuation Day. And some people are celebrating by baking giant chocolate-chip cookies in the shape of question marks and commas. (Tip: an ellipsis would be MUCH easier...)
I might consider trying to form tonight's dinner (grilled wild Alaskan salmon fillets) into exclamation points, but I'm not going to make any promises. And had I known there was an "Official Meat Loaf of National Punctuation Day" (see a picture here and even download the recipe), something different would have been on the menu tonight, my friends. (Can you HEAR the relief coming from Travis and Jeremy right now?)
In honor of this historic occasion, I'm not only going to use excessive parentheses in this post (see above and below), I'm also going to introduce you to a punctuation mark that I only recently discovered—one that is long overdue, in my humble opinion. It is called "the interrobang." For some reason, I find the article "the" important. It doesn't sound right to say "an interrobang." Oh no. This is THE INTERROBANG. (I almost want to duck every time I hear it or type it.)
Do you like it? I made it myself. THE INTERROBANG is a "nonstandard English punctuation mark," so it doesn't show up in very many fonts. (Look for it as a special character in Wingdings 2.) It's basically a combination of an exclamation point and a question mark, so I layered the two together in my blog's signature font, Baileywick Gothic, and made my own. Although you may have never heard of THE INTERROBANG before, it really can be quite useful. Consider these expressions (shown first without THE INTERROBANG and then with it):
"You and Zack did what with my hairdryer and a box of matches?!?"
"You and Zack did what with my hairdryer and a box of matches‽"
"What the...?!?"
"What the...‽"
"Your dad's new girlfriend is how old?!?"
"Your dad's new girlfriend is how old‽"
"How much did you pay for those shoes?!?!"
"How much did you pay for those shoes‽"
In those all-too-frequent situations where THE INTERROBANG is not available to you, you may be wondering if there's a particular pattern you should use for your exclamation points and question marks. Here's what Wikipedia has to say on the subject: "The question mark frequently comes first (to emphasize that it is a question), although there is no universal style rule on the subject." And in general, you want to avoid overly long strings of "?!?!?!??!?!" because at a certain point they lose their effectiveness. In my opinion "?!?" or "?!?!" is generally sufficient.
Lucas out‽
Yes.
p.s. I'm not making this up. The above quotes came from Wikipedia. Grammar Girl has also covered THE INTERROBANG on her podcast. And someone on etsy.com once made it into a necklace, but it's sold out.
