
Punctuation that failed to make its mark - ZeljkoS
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151104-punctuation-that-failed-to-make-its-mark
======
crankylinuxuser
I'd posit the idea that we primarily use the punctuation that we find on the
keyboard of the device we use.

On Windows/Linux, I use a 101 key. We all know the symbols. And those are the
ones I use. There are cases in which I can use an interrobang or kanji-related
emoticons, but I'm doing a google search and copying and pasting. But long
story short, I don't use these other symbols because they're not easily
available.

Sure, I could remap my keys, at least on Xorg. (No clue how to do that on
Windows. ) But then, those symbols just aren't used. It's also a reason I
don't bother with APL, because the language uses dozens of characters that
aren't normally on a keyboard. I'll mess with ones I can type.

Now, phones... Oh my. A phone will auto-substitute picture emoticons from
things like :D . Technically, these are a Unicode character set with device
implementations. It means even though the pic is a 32x32, it's only usually 2
bytes (unicode is fucky, urgh, so many bugs). I'm more leery in using unicode
because of character handling and badness, but things seem to be moving that
general direction.

But for the wider issue of Unicode, these "failed symbols" are right in there.
But good luck exploring and finding them, since characters can be from 1-6
bytes, or 2^48 space... Alas, back to searching google and copying and
pasting.

~~~
ghaff
Primarily.

The major exception for me is em-dashes, which I use all the time.

There are also a few punctuation marks on a standard keyboard that don't get
used very much outside of programming and other specialized contexts. {}\|

Another interesting thing related to punctuation is that the use of some
punctation is really overloaded. Quotation marks in particular can mean
literally quoting someone, a scare quote, an indication that something is a
term of art, titles of certain types of works, and probably some other
variants.

~~~
KozmoNau7
On some keyboard layouts (including Danish, which I use), we also have the ¤
on shift-4.

 _Nobody_ I know has ever used ¤ in any context at all, it seems like such an
odd addition. I've used it sometimes as a footnote marker, since it's highly
unlikely to clash with formatting, unlike an asterisk.

~~~
1996
It is the international currency symbol, added to please Russia that didn't
like $ being part of ASCII

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akavel
This made me think that smileys & emoticons are actually the new generation of
punctuation marks :P

~~~
raxxorrax
Some languages already have perfectly fine smileys as part of their alphabet.

Case in point: Ü (works better with sans-serif fonts but doesn't it look
happy?)

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kaushalmodi
This article is from 2015.

So does the posting of this have anything to do with the recent Interrobang
episode on the 99% Invisible podcast‽

(99pi is an awesome podcast btw!).

After listening to this episode, I even added a binding to the "C-x 8" map in
Emacs[0]. This key map is mainly used for inserting various Unicode
characters. So now in my Emacs, "C-x 8 ?" inserts ‽.

[0]:
[https://github.com/kaushalmodi/.emacs.d/commit/a70dd6b7c39f0...](https://github.com/kaushalmodi/.emacs.d/commit/a70dd6b7c39f0ab6513d286b001245345be2636e)

~~~
Maxion
I listened to the same episode. The interrobang seems oddly useful, strange
that it hasn't caught on more.

------
themodelplumber
These are great. And they are expressions of type: "This is a different type
of thing from a !. This type of thing is a (string of words that is
represented by the new punctuation mark)".

Expressions of type give us new technology and increased leverage: We can
further our inquiries because we can communicate those inquiries more
objectively (i.e. more easily cross the subjectivity barrier). This
objectified information is now information-technology-tooling. Though subtle,
the use of these tools can eventually lead to new learning experiences and
highly refined and promising new fields of work.

One of my current areas of interest is not so much punctuation, but what I
call type-marks. These are unique markers that communicate the type of
information that follows, or what is meant to be done with it. I find it's
best if these symbols already exist in unicode tables. An example from bullet
journaling is the hollow, upward-pointing triangle, which represents a meeting
or event. I use other type-marks to indicate things like potential new models
or leverage points in new models that may lead to useful new technologies. I
use U+2295 or &oplus for that one in particular.

Anyway thanks to OP for posting the article--I love stuff like this.

------
lainga
_In 2001, a blogger named Tara Liloia wrote that sarcastic sentences should be
ended with a tilde (~)_

Oh, how far you have fallen, tilde.

~~~
mindcrime
It only just now occurred to me that I have absolutely no idea what the tilde
was originally for. I only know it as a shortcut for "user's home dir". I'm
sure it must have had some kind of pre-computer use, but I can't even imagine
what it might have been.

I guess I could check Wikipedia, but I almost don't _want_ to know. Like,
finding out would take some of the mystery out of the world‽

~~~
Doxin
My wild guess would be that it started as a composition character on
typewriters to write things such as ã.

For those unfamiliar with how accents work on a typewriter: There'd be a
couple special accent marks such as ~ and ` and whatnot that'd put down their
accent _but not advance the carriage._ You could then hit a letter to get e.g.
à or ē. It's a pretty clever system to prevent having to have a key for every
accent.

~~~
lainga
Oh. Now I get why some fonts hoist the tilde up high.

------
rubatuga
What about /s for sarcasm? It seems any symbol not easily typed on the QWERTY
keyboard will never be relevant.

~~~
nerdponx
The problem isn't the keyboard, it's the USB HID spec. You can easily make
keyboards that can send arbitrary Unicode characters, but they still have to
talk to computer in the same outdated language of scancodes.

~~~
avian
Don't be so quick to dismiss something you don't understand as outdated and in
need of replacement.

If keyboards would send characters instead of scancodes you would lose the
ability to switch keyboard layouts in software (or it would be an ugly hack,
which it was before we started to use scancodes). Many people use their
computers with multiple languages and find switching keyboard layouts on-the-
fly very useful.

~~~
rwmj
While there might be a handful of people who switch keyboard layouts, I
imagine that different keyboard layouts causes far more problems, lost time,
and engineering effort. Overall it would still be better if keyboards sent
Unicode characters.

~~~
yiyus
You say you imagine different layouts cause problems and sending Unicode
characters would be better, but you did not give a single reason.

I regularly use different keyboard layouts and it has never been a problem. It
does not suppose any lost of time or engineering effort. When you have to
usually communicate in different languages (which is common for the most part
of the world), it is very useful.

I have also built several keyboards, and I cannot imagine the pain it would be
having to define a key for every Unicode character.

~~~
rwmj
I gave several reasons: Every time I install a new computer I have to select
the keyboard layout, or the layout is wrong and I cannot type properly. Think
of all the user and engineering effort wasted to support this corner case of
switching keyboard layouts (so the keycaps don't even match the keys sent),
used by a tiny number of users.

I personally know of how much work went into getting QEMU to support keyboard
layouts. It has to convert characters back to scancodes so the guest OS can
convert the same scancodes back to characters. It was a nightmare to get it
right. Such a lot of effort for such a silly feature.

> I have also built several keyboards, and I cannot imagine the pain it would
> be having to define a key for every Unicode character.

What? There's no reason you would define a key for every Unicode character.

~~~
yiyus
Many users do not even know that keyboard layouts can be changed. I think you
are hugely overestimating the effort spent in this. I understand this could be
tricky for QEMU, but emulators are always tricky. They are exceptional, not
the norm.

And what I don't understand, is how it would work in your ideal world. Let's
assume we do not allow users to change keyboard layouts. How do I input
characters for different languages? Am I supposed to have a different keyboard
for every language or do I need a keyboard than can change layouts? Would
those keyboards be included in laptops? How is this simpler than keyboard
layouts in the OS?

I do not say you would have to define a key for every Unicode character, but
if the OS is expecting Unicode, either you have to define some way to send it
from the keyboard, or you implement in the OS some mapping, but at that point
you would just be using Unicode characters as scancodes and we would be back
at square one.

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mimhoff
For me the interrobang just looks too busy and small, it needs some thought
put into its appearance by font designers.

Maybe back in the days of typewriters you could overlay ? and ! but I don't
think it looks good today‽

~~~
SquareWheel
Agreed. I can't see myself using it because it looks so out of place and bold
in a sentence.

Plus, how often do I really need to chain a question and exclamation mark
together?

~~~
phicoh
It seems to me that the right way to start would be to type '!?' If that gets
popular, then you can have an !?-ligature.

~~~
SquareWheel
Agreed. Ligatures seem like a much more elegant solution.

------
mirimir
˙ƃuıɥʇ uʍop ǝpısdn ǝɥʇ s,ǝɹǝɥʇ uǝɥʇ pu∀

[https://www.web2generators.com/text-related-tools/write-
upsi...](https://www.web2generators.com/text-related-tools/write-upside-down)

~~~
oldandtired
It needs to be upside down and back to front for all the linotype operators
and lead type printers to read.

~~~
mirimir
True. But I'm not finding a site for that.

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another-cuppa
No example of the quasi-quote? I'm not sure how it would look, -"a bit like
this"-?

~~~
annabellish
They don't make it clear at that point, but the section on the interrobang
makes it clear we're talking about old typewriters. "[backspace]- would result
in the - being directly underneath the " on a monospace typewriter.

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nsxwolf
Interrobang survived, not as its own symbol, but in ?! form.

~~~
Jaxan
But in what order should they come!?

~~~
jfk13
Isn't it obvious?!

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WalterBright
Now we have emoji.

