Why hello there. This is a page that I hope to fill with random and utterly non-connected rants and ramblings about anything and everything. Much like the everything bagel from that one movie, I hope to put my dreams, regrets, hopes, poppyseeds, and sesame seeds into this page all at once.

January 6, 2023

The Interrobang‽

This pesky little punctuation mark has gone unnoticed and underused in the past several years. It first came to my attention when reading the utterly absurd sci-fi book named Battle of the Linguist Mages which featured sentient “rogue” punctuation marks. The most interesting among the sentient punctuation marks was by far the interrobang.

The interrobang’s use is mainly for the common occurrence of when you are both surprised and shocked. This mixture of emotions has been increasingly used in text conversations that I have taken a part in, however the use of the interrobang is not widely used. Instead, people choose to use the highly inefficient form of a question mark followed by an exclamation mark or vice-versa.

Speaking to a memetic analysis of the interrobang, the prevalence of this incredibly useful ‘rogue’ punctuation mark can be attributed to both the effort that it takes to use the interrobang on a normal QWERTY keyboard and the lack of interrobang advocates in the world. It seems that everyone forgets about the little punctuation mark that could. But this symbol should be celebrated for its beauty and efficiency. This symbol should be used only when appropriate, but it is important and valuable to be succinct in all communication, so… next time you are flabbergasted by something someone texts or emails you, be sure to consider the interrobang.