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The irony mark or irony point (؟) (French: point d’ironie; also called a snark or zing) is a proposed punctuation mark that was suggested to be used to indicate that a sentence should be understood at a second level (e.g. irony, sarcasm, etc.). It is illustrated by a small, elevated, backward-facing question mark. The irony mark has never been used widely. It appears occasionally in obscure artistic or literary publications.
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History
This mark ؟ was proposed by the French poet Alcanter de Brahm (alias Marcel Bernhardt) at the end of the 19th century. It was in turn taken by Hervé Bazin in his book Plumons l’Oiseau (1966), in which the author proposes several other innovative punctuation marks, such as the doubt point (
), certitude point (
), acclamation point (
), authority point (
), indignation point (
), and love point (
).
Its form is essentially the same as the late medieval 
, a percontation point (punctus percontativus), which was used to mark rhetorical questions.[1]
Printing
This character can be represented using the reversed question mark found in Unicode as (⸮) U+2E2E. It can also be represented by the similar Arabic question mark U+061F (؟), although its directional properties differ from those of the reversed question mark in that it affects direction of the cursor over the mark, which can cause problems in text processing.
Percontation point
The "rhetorical question mark" or Percontation Point was invented by Henry Denham in the 1580s and was used at the end of a rhetorical question; however, its use died out in the 1600s. It was the reverse of an ordinary question mark, so that instead of the main opening pointing back into the sentence, it opened away from it.[2] This character can be represented using the reversed question mark (؟) found in Unicode as U+2E2E. The percontation point is analogous to the "Irony Mark"--used to indicate that a sentence should be understood at a second level (e.g. irony, sarcasm, etc.)--but these are rarely seen.[1]
Rhetorical questions in some (informal) situations can use a bracketed question mark, eg. "Oh, really(?)", for example in 888 subtitles.[3]
The question mark can also be used as a "meta" sign to signal uncertainty regarding what precedes. It is usually put between brackets (?). The uncertainty may concern either a superficial (such as unsure spelling) or a deeper truth, (real meaning) level.
See also
References
- ^ a b Proposal to add Medievalist and Iranianist punctuation characters to the UCS by Michael Everson, Peter Baker, Marcus Dohnicht, António Emiliano, Odd Einar Haugen, Susana Pedro, David J. Perry, Roozbeh Pournader.
- ^ Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots & Leaves, 2003. p. 142. ISBN 1-592-40087-6.
- ^ The equivalent for an ironic or sarcastic statement would be a bracketed exclamation mark, eg. "Oh, really(!)".
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