Proposal for a new punctuation mark

Rob Walker says: "A proposal for a new punctuation mark that would be somewhere between the deadpan period and the excitable exclamation point. I think the digital-text era would benefit."

I can recall coming across advice when I was in college in the late 1980s suggesting that it was permissible to use an exclamation mark once every twenty years or so. Today I probably type one every twenty minutes. I’m not doing so in published work, naturally, but rather in email: “Thanks!” “Congrats!” “See you soon!” It’s not just me. Even as I was writing this paragraph, I got a note from a highly erudite editor of a widely respected literary/cultural journal: “You are too kind!”

You like it‽

Ellen Susan proposes a new punctuation mark, the ElRey, for the digital-text era

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Jellodyne

The exclamation point has already filled this role! We need to replace the traditional role of the exclamation point with a double exclamation point!! This is just the cost of living in an era of exclamation point inflation!!!
- Cowicide
  
  NOOOoooooo!!!
- GawainLavers
  
  Yes!!!!!!!!!!!11!!1!oneoneone!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  THANKS OBAMA!!!!!
Just_Ok

Great idea!
Cowicide

I <3 it.
capnmarrrrk

Rorschach approves
Kenmrph

I am extremely excited about this idea.
- Rod Sullivan
  
  What would help us out of this morass would be a punctuation mark which expresses the profound apathy we feel when reading much of what’s on the web.
  
  A pithy name for the i-don’t-give-a-shit mark.
  - Kenmrph
    
    I think what you’re looking for is the “mehxclamation point”
http://newnumber6.livejournal.com Peter

I don’t think it’s really necessary. But I do kind of think we need, standardized, a type of quotation mark for denoting digital text-based communication. Like, quotation marks are fine to use for that sometimes, but if you’re writing a story or a news article or something and mixing vocal conversation and a person reading a text-message in the same scene, it can be a little confusing.
dioptase

No .–.
- GawainLavers
  
  The mark does remind me of one of the Oatmeal’s “alienation faces”, if sideways. Maybe the problem is not distinguishing between high excitement and sincerity, but between sincerity and sincerity and insincerity? My problem has never been between period and exclamation mark, but between period and ellipsis…
- s2redux
  
  Yes |
http://twitter.com/ironicsans David Friedman

Along not dissimilar lines, I recently proposed software that helps break the exclamation habit by giving you a set number of exclamation points to use per week: http://www.ironicsans.com/2013/02/idea_the_exclamation_point_lim.html
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=586460203 Magill Foote

I think we need a /sarcasm punctuation mark much more than the half-hearted exclamation mark.
- http://www.facebook.com/victor.jimenezmerino Víctor Jiménez Merino
  
  A sarcasm punctuation! How useful؟
- Lupus_Yonderboy
  
  It already exists: http://02d9656.netsoljsp.com/SarcMark/modules/user/commonfiles/loadhome.do
  
  In fact, versions of it have existed for well over a hundred years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation
  
  What we need is for it to be standardized, embraced by the masses and given a place on QWERTY keyboards, which is the same problem that Ellen Susan is going to run into with her new punctuation as well.
  - Kennric
    
    I think you have stumbled across something profound here. In the days of longhand writing, punctuation and letter forms were up to the writer, who could freehand a new mark if they wanted. If their correspondents liked it and picked it up, it could spread, but keyboards (and UTF) have locked us into a immutable set of marks and letter forms.
    
    Unlike words, new punctuation is a matter of international standards bodies, computer manufactures and software developers rather than casual usage and adoption.
    - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOOM27DBLMZQIJVK4BQLE7K5YA Nagurski
      
      A designer punctuation skit seems like a natural for Portlandia.
shutz

I feel there’s a much more pressing need for an irony/sarcasm mark.
- http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar
  
  Oh, yeah — spot on. An irony mark would be so perfect. I’m serious! I don’t how I’ve managed so long without one.
http://twitter.com/fake_tudza Tudza White II

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrobang
- http://twitter.com/The_Thnikkaman The_Thnikkaman
  
  God I hate interrobangs. It’s mostly the name.
  - http://newnumber6.livejournal.com Peter
    
    Interrobang: When you seduce a member of the enemy side in order to get information out of them. See: Bond, James.
Nadreck

We also need question and exclamation marks with commas instead of periods at the bottom so that you don’t have to end the sentence when using them.
- Lupus_Yonderboy
  
  Dodgammit. That’s brilliant.
Rob

(_/)
(O.o)
(> <)
- awjt
  
  ^this.
  
  I hate all punctuation. I use it, well, well, not well, because I was trained to: but I hate it. Ever try writing code in javascript, java or vb? Or, any of a dozen other (shitty) languages. Most of the time, your shit just doesn’t WORK because you have a single quote in the wrong place or a semicolon, not to mention all the parenteticals for flow control… I mean, MOST of my time is spent fixing punctuation for the stupid, ridiculous inflexible conventions of the language I’m using. It’s a huge waste of time. In short, my life SUCKS because of punctuation.
waetherman

This reminds me of that brilliant Onion article; Porn-Desensitized Internet Demands New Orifice.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  That’s why I’m hooked on demon porn; they just make new ones.
http://www.appliedesoterics.com bfarn

Whatever. I get excited emails from highly erudite editors of widely respected literary/cultural journals all the time.
http://twitter.com/_nb Nicolas Bouilleaud

That’s already doable:

|̣̇

Unicode characters VERTICAL BAR, COMBINING DOT ABOVE and COMBINING DOT BELOW.
- awjt
  
  your dots need kerning.
  - Jellodyne
    
    I never!
noah django

>You like it‽

well, no. at first I didn’t understand the application, but after reading the link, I realized that I have also used an exclamation point unnecessarily to avoid making a statement seem deadpan or sarcastic. there is a need for a mark that says “sincerity and goodwill” without “unbridled enthusiasm.”

I do not think the glyph proposed by Susan is the solution, though. it is visually *more* ostentatious than an exclamation point and therefore suggests even more excitement. naming it “the king” in Spanish gives the same impression.

if a period sits on the baseline of the text, and the exclamation rises to the top of the text, shouldn’t this proposed glyph lie somewhere in the middle? what if it was bent over to suggest a muting of the exclamation? “¬.” but bent the other way? i dunno. IANAtypographer, but the elrey ain’t working for me.

punctuating with a smile works pretty well, too, come to think of it :)
- hymenopterid
  
  If there was a punctuation mark that denoted a lack of sarcasm I’m pretty sure all the sarcastic people would start using it ironically.
  
  Which retort seems more scathing?
  
  –I just got a new Bosch oven!
  –I’m so happy for you!
  Or
  –I just got a new Bosch oven!
  –I’m so happy for you (sincerity mark)
  - noah django
    
    I see the wisdom of it. I do find it irksome that sometimes a period used correctly/meant benignly can connote a deadpan delivery. perhaps a “deadpan” mark over the period is more to the point (ha.) though I’m heavily in favor of discarding the whole concept now.
Snowlark

Anyone who writes like this needs a dose of Raymond Carver, two hours a day, stat.
http://twitter.com/peterbruells Peter Brülls

I think the real solution would be to give low electrical shocks whenever the sign-which-shall-not-be-named gets typed.
Bill Banks

My colleague and I have taken to capitalizing the last two letters in a word to accomplish the same tone.

ThanKS. sits right between Thanks. and Thanks!
robotnik

InterestingKS
Their feldspars

It occurred to me that there was a need for a less excitedly frantic mark in 1978, so I started using “½!”–back then, there was a ½ key on the keyboard. Perhaps now its day has arrived ½!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  So if you’re really excited, you use !², and if you’re peeing yourself with enthusiasm, !³ ?
  - Their feldspars
    
    Actually, I’m more subdued than that, though I can imagine that some might want to go that way. However, it’s easy to add more exclamation points…fewer than one, but more than zero, is the challenge. A very excited person could make the entire sentence factorial! Wait…that won’t work.
  - http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty
    
    ++good
TheOven

There will never be any new punctuation in the English language.
http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza

▲ is pleased
petsounds

I don’t think it communicates the concept well. How about an exclamation point on its side?

I’m so excited to go to Jeff’s party on Friday._
VibroCount

A composition professor referred to exclamation points as “dumbshiats.” (without the a)

He believed that if the exclamation worked well when the word dumbshiat was used in the place of the punctuation, then the exclamation point was usuable.

“Really, dumbshiat?” works. “Ouch, dumbshiat” works. “Thanks, dumbshiat” does, on occasion, work.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Jacques/588978151 Chris Jacques

This is a seriously unnecessary idea.

I use ~. It works great. More enthusiastic than period, less screamtastic than an exclamation point.

Wow cool~
http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Jacques/588978151 Chris Jacques

Though I don’t know why this page is showing it at the top and not the middle of letters.
userw014

We are stuck with design decisions made by the Digital Equipment Corp made for the DECWRITER series of printing terminals (LA-30, LA-120, etc) and the VT100/VT102 display terminals.

Does your keyboard have a US cents sign? Yes, I’m sure it’s in Unicode, but it isn’t accessible. What about 1/2, 1/4, etc. symbols? Those are available in various ways too – but not on a conventional QWERTY keyboard. I believe these symbols were on IBM 3270 terminals – but not on DEC terminals.

Want to go really strange? APL had an enormous number of symbols and required special displays and keyboards. The American Library Association had a design for online library catalogs that required special keyboards and displays.

Special displays aren’t a problem these days – but there is limited space on a keyboard, and unless a symbol can find a standard location on a keyboard (some combination of FN/SHIFT/CONTROL/OPTION/COMMAND/WINDOWS LATIN, then it won’t be used by the masses.
- Their feldspars
  
  So that’s who removed those keys. They should be drawn and ¼ed ½!