The interrobang (), also known as the interabang (often represented by any of ?!, !?, ?!? or !?!), is an unconventional

punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. A ...

mark used in various written languages and intended to combine the functions of the

question mark The question mark (also known as interrogation point, query, or eroteme in journalism) is a punctuation mark that indicates an interrogative clause or phrase in many languages. History In the fifth century, Syriac Bible manuscripts used ...

, or interrogative point, and the

exclamation mark The exclamation mark, , or exclamation point (American English), is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or to show emphasis. The exclamation mark often marks the end of a sentence, ...

, or exclamation point, known in the

jargon Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...

of printers and programmers as a "bang". The

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

is a ligature of these two marks and was first proposed in 1962 by Martin K. Speckter.

Application

A sentence ending with an interrobang asks a question in an excited manner, expresses excitement, disbelief or confusion in the form of a question, or asks a

rhetorical question A rhetorical question is one for which the questioner does not expect a direct answer: in many cases it may be intended to start a discourse, or as a means of displaying or emphasize the speaker's or author's opinion on a topic. A common example ...

. For example: * You call that a knife‽ * Are you ''out of your mind''‽ * What are those‽ Writers using informal language may use several alternating question marks and exclamation marks for even more emphasis; however, this is regarded as poor style in formal writing.

History

Historically, writers have used multiple punctuation marks to end a sentence expressing surprise and question.

Invention

American Martin K. Speckter (1915 – February 14, 1988) conceptualized the interrobang in 1962. As the head of an

advertising agency An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generall ...

, Speckter believed that advertisements would look better if copywriters conveyed surprised

s using a single mark. He proposed the concept of a single punctuation mark in an article in the magazine ''TYPEtalks''. Speckter solicited possible names for the new character from readers. Contenders included ''exclamaquest'', ''QuizDing'', ''rhet'', and ''exclarotive'', but he settled on ''interrobang''. He chose the name to reference the punctuation marks that inspired it: ''interrogatio'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

for "

" or "

cross-examination In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa, India and Pakistan known as examination-in-chief) an ...

"; ''bang'' is printers' slang for the exclamation mark. Graphic treatments for the new mark were also submitted in response to the article.

Early interest

In 1965, Richard Isbell created the Americana typeface for

American Type Founders American Type Founders (ATF) Co. was a business trust created in 1892 by the merger of 23 type foundries, representing about 85% of all type manufactured in the United States. De Vinne, Theodore Low, ''The Practice of Typography,'' Century Comp ...

and included the interrobang as one of the characters. In 1968, an interrobang key was available on some Remington

typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selective ...

s. In the 1970s, replacement interrobang keycaps and typefaces were available for some Smith-Corona typewriters. The interrobang was in vogue for much of the 1960s; the word ''interrobang'' appeared in some dictionaries, and the mark was used in magazine and newspaper articles.

Continued support

Most fonts do not include the interrobang, but it has not disappeared.

Lucida Grande Lucida Grande is a humanist sans-serif typeface. It is a member of the Lucida family of typefaces designed by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes. It is best known for its implementation throughout the macOS user interface from 1999 to 2014, as ...

, the default font for many UI elements of legacy versions of

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ances ...

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

operating system, includes the interrobang, and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

provides several versions of the interrobang in the

Wingdings 2 Wingdings is a series of dingbat fonts that render letters as a variety of symbols. They were originally developed in 1990 by Microsoft by combining glyphs from Lucida Icons, Arrows, and Stars licensed from Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes. Cert ...

character set (on the right

bracket A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

and

tilde The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin ''titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in ...

keys on US keyboard layouts), included with

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a ma ...

. It was accepted into

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

and is included in several fonts, including Lucida Sans Unicode,

Arial Unicode MS In digital typography, the TrueType font Arial Unicode MS is an extended version of the font Arial. Compared to Arial, it includes higher line height, omits kerning pairs and adds enough glyphs to cover a large subset of Unicode 2.1—thus sup ...

, and

Calibri Calibri () is a digital sans-serif typeface family in the humanist or modern style. It was designed by Luc(as) de Groot in 2002–2004 and released to the general public in 2007, with Microsoft Office 2007 and Windows Vista. In Office 2007, ...

, the default font in the Office 2007,

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

, and

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment ...

suites.

Inverted interrobang

A reverse and upside-down interrobang (combining ¿ and ¡, Unicode character: ⸘), suitable for starting phrases in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: ** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...

, Galician and Asturian—which use inverted question and exclamation marks—is called an "inverted interrobang" or a ''gnaborretni'' (''interrobang'' spelled backwards), but the latter is rarely used. In current practice, interrobang-like emphatic ambiguity in Hispanic languages is usually achieved by including both sets of punctuation marks one inside the other (''¿¡De verdad!?'' or ''¡¿De verdad?!'' 'Really!?''. Older usage, still official but not widespread, recommended mixing the punctuation marks: ''¡Verdad?'' or ''¿Verdad!''

Entering and display

Few modern

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands ...

s or fonts include a

for the interrobang character. The standard interrobang is at

code point . The inverted interrobang is at Unicode code point . Everson, Michael
Proposal to add INVERTED INTERROBANG to the UCS
, April 1, 2005 Single-character versions of the double-glyph versions are also available at code points and . On a

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

system supporting the Compose key, an interrobang can be produced by ; reversing the order () creates the inverted interrobang. On macOS, it is found on the Character Palette, obtained by pressing the key combination . The interrobang can be inserted in HTML with . The interrobang can be displayed in

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosper ...

by using the package textcomp and the command . The inverted interrobang is the command .

Examples of use

The

State Library of New South Wales The State Library of New South Wales, part of which is known as the Mitchell Library, is a large heritage-listed special collections, reference and research library open to the public and is one of the oldest libraries in Australia. Establis ...

, in Australia, uses an interrobang as its logo, as does the educational publishing company Pearson, which thus intends to convey "the excitement and fun of learning". Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook used an interrobang in the 2012 United States Seventh Circuit opinion ''Robert F. Booth Trust v. Crowley''.

Australian Federal Court The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law (with the exception of family law matters), along with some summary (less serious) and indic ...

Justice Michael Wigney used an interrobang in the first paragraph of his 2018 judgment in Faruqi v Latham

018 018 may refer to *Air Canada Flight 018, an airline flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver, Canada, illegally boarded by a Chinese man wearing a disguise in 2010 *Area code 018, a telephone area code in Uppsala, Sweden *BMW 018, an experimental turboje ...

FCA 1328 (defamation proceedings between former Federal Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, and political campaigner and writer, Osman Faruqi). In

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

, an interrobang is used to represent a dubious move, one which is questionable but possibly has merits. (See also the evaluation symbols ?! (dubious move) and !? (interesting move).)

References

External links

The Interrobang: A twentieth-century punctuation mark

National Punctuation Day Reignites: Interrobang Passion

99 Percent Invisible podcast episode and article about the interrobang
{{navbox punctuation Typographical symbols Punctuation Symbols introduced in 1962