Oh no, Interrobang!?
Ever wish that you could shout and ask a question in the same sentence without having to use two different punctuation marks at the end of the sentence? Well, fear not! Because you actually can.
In 1964 a creative American named Martin Specktor decided that it would help advertising if you could show a surprise rhetorical question in one punctuation mark. Thus, the interrobang was born.
Actually, combined forms of punctuation have been around for a long time, including the interrobang. It just happened no one named it before then. Heck, where did you think we got the semi colon? ; it just looks like a comma and a colon had a baby! Awww, cute!
Of course, the interrobang isn’t popular…anywhere, really. It’s a completely useless punctuation when most people just use !? or forget about it all together. If more people started making use of the interrobang, maybe it would show up in school books, and be used so often that it would have to be taught. But would you really approve of reading a sentence with one of these on the end‽ I wouldn’t, at least not until they give us a more visible punctuation mark. It looks like a blurry, badly drawn P.
What are your thoughts? Are you going to find a new way to use this avant-garde punctuation mark?

October 29th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
*jumps up and down* I’m totally going to use it on my next English essay.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Um… ow. My eyes.
That is one ugly piece of equipment.
October 30th, 2007 at 12:14 am
Absolutely. We must take full advantage of our tools and this is one of them.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:23 am
XD I hate interrobangs. Make use of it, Adam? Well, it would keep MS Word from telling me !? is wrong. But I do love the look or !? or is it ?! ? I like !? it looks better.
I should find some other obscure pieces of punctuation. XD
October 30th, 2007 at 8:59 am
I love it! I think it looks awesome, actually! hmm, how to do you make such a thing when typing? Odd.
October 30th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
lol, just the name good enough. I’d use it, but like you said, it’s a bit blurry. Be there an alt code for it, or would I have to copy/paste it every time I wanted to use it?
October 30th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
I am not entirely sure that there IS an alt code for it. In fact, I don’t think there is, which shows its…lack of usage. I copied and pasted it. I’ll look into this for y’all.
October 31st, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Its a bit of a gimmick, but who wouldn’t want to put something like this on an english report‽