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I don't have a strong opinion on the interrobang either way, but let's imagine we wanted to start a campaign for it to go mainstream. The most important thing

I don't have a strong opinion on the interrobang either way, but let's imagine we wanted to start a campaign for it to go mainstream. The most important thing that could happen would be for a popular auto-correct tool to start substituting it for '?!' and '!?'. MS Word would be ideal. People would start to get familiar with it when reading other's works. And when authoring, people tend to treat auto-correct like an authority and learn from it. I suspect something similar happened with the ellipsis character in place of three periods. I have a hunch it would catch on easier in the non-English markets, which may be slightly more accustomed to the inconvenience of using glyphs that aren't always available on every keyboard. Next, it needs to be included in mobile keyboards. I don't know about iOS, but I can't find it in Gboard for Android. We could start logging requests and submitting pull requests along those lines. Now we may not want a viral event. No hashtag campaigns, lest we awaken a louder dissenting crowd. I think the Trojan Horse is a better strategy at first.

josephpmay 8y ago
Microsoft word‽ Surly this campaign would be more successful if it started with autocorrect on phones.
- ademarre 8y ago
  That's a good point! But wouldn't we need better mobile keyboard support before that happens?
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    The default keyboard on my Sony Xperia… something can already type a fair number of characters, but I don't think most people discover them. These are all accessed by holding down keys on the number/punctuation view: ¢ ¯ — – ≈ ≠ ± ‡ † ‰ ÷ × « » ½ ¼ ⅛ ⅓ ⅔ ¾ ⅜ ² ³ ⁴ ⅝ ⁿ ⅞ • … ¿ ¡ They're not very discoverable like that. Some are repeated, but these ones are on the second page of punctuation: § ¶ ° ¬ ~ © ® | ¦ I'm missing ‽ and a subscript 2 so I can write CO2 properly.
    - hibbelig 8y ago
      You need "‽" to write CO2 properly‽ SCNR
function_seven 8y ago
I think you nailed it. More than half of the em dashes and en dashes I type are a result of Word correcting a pair of hyphens in a row. I write "Foo--but not bar" and it renders “Foo—but not bar”. There are no curly quotes on my keyboard either, but any decently professional typesetting uses them of course.
- Angostura 8y ago
  do you really want an em-dash there? they are typically used in sentences to introduce a strong break in a parethetical clause, but without using parentheses :)
  - function_seven 8y ago
    Is this the grammar equivalent of people misreading the contrived code snippet—often shortened to focus the reader on the concept being discussed (like on StackOverflow)—for the real thing? There, nested both types. I think that works.
blattimwind 8y ago
> substituting it for '?!' and '!?' But these aren't the same!?
- lifthrasiir 8y ago
  I think the interrobang or its alikes have different functions in written languages and spoken languages. In written languages they all are just a grab bag of mixed-mode reactions including surprise or rhetorical questions. In spoken languages (or corresponding transcripts), I found a distinction between !? and ?! is valuable because there is temporality not usually represented in written languages, and would avoid ‽ for the same reason. Likewise I argue that the number of dots in ellipses is meaningless in written languages (henceforth "standardized" to three dots) but can be actually meaningful in spoken languages.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    How do you speak a 4-dotted ellipsis differently to a 3-dotted one?!
    - blattimwind 8y ago
      It's ...... longer.
    - pssflops 8y ago
      One of the four dots ended your previous sentence before you begin speaking again.
- Faaak 8y ago
  On the dvorak keyboard, if you compose ? and !, it replaced by ⸘, whereas ! and ? will give ‽
  - pc86 8y ago
    ⸘Porque no los dos‽
wodenokoto 8y ago
> but let's imagine we wanted to start a campaign for it to go mainstream. I believe Reddit has tried it for years. Maybe they should have focused on auto correct.
- corobo 8y ago
  The main problem of using it on reddit is that every reply to your comment will be "oh my god the interrobang!!!", "upvoted for interrobang", etc
azernik 8y ago
I have a different proposal - ligatures. I don't know if you've ever played with a font like FiraCode, but it gives you both fancy typographical symbols and compatibility with existing compilers by defining purely-visual translations between certain sequences of characters and purpose-built glyphs. So for example '!=' is rendered as '≠', '=>' as '⇒', '>=' as '≥', etc. See https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode. They do go a bit overboard, IMO.
- Uberphallus 8y ago
  Oh, they do. Why should www turn into a ligature?
  - pc86 8y ago
    Isn't the whole point of a ligature to visually change a suboptimal representation of something to what it's supposed to represent? E.g. changing != to ≠ visually while the compiler still sees !=? www isn't representing anything so a ligature doesn't make sense. Same with the comment ligatures, the << and <<< comparisons (shouldn't <> change to ≠?). Even the thinner escape \, which I understand the reasoning for, is probably overkill.
    - azernik 8y ago
      Traditionally ligatures have been about abbreviation or aesthetics, not weird approximations in character sets: see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature E.g. when I enable ligatures in Pillars of Eternity, it just makes all the prose look gorgeous.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
|√Π÷×§∆≠∞′↑¢₱¥€\][™®©‰… Interesting the range of characters that are available in Gboard on my Android phone.
- pc86 8y ago
  Seems odd that you'd get things like ‰ and √ and not an interrobang.
craftyguy 8y ago
It exists on AnySoftKeyboard (FLOSS android keyboard): ‽

josephpmay 8y ago

Microsoft word‽ Surly this campaign would be more successful if it started with autocorrect on phones.

ademarre 8y ago
That's a good point! But wouldn't we need better mobile keyboard support before that happens?
- Symbiote 8y ago
  The default keyboard on my Sony Xperia… something can already type a fair number of characters, but I don't think most people discover them. These are all accessed by holding down keys on the number/punctuation view: ¢ ¯ — – ≈ ≠ ± ‡ † ‰ ÷ × « » ½ ¼ ⅛ ⅓ ⅔ ¾ ⅜ ² ³ ⁴ ⅝ ⁿ ⅞ • … ¿ ¡ They're not very discoverable like that. Some are repeated, but these ones are on the second page of punctuation: § ¶ ° ¬ ~ © ® | ¦ I'm missing ‽ and a subscript 2 so I can write CO2 properly.
  - hibbelig 8y ago
    You need "‽" to write CO2 properly‽ SCNR

function_seven 8y ago

I think you nailed it. More than half of the em dashes and en dashes I type are a result of Word correcting a pair of hyphens in a row. I write "Foo--but not bar" and it renders “Foo—but not bar”. There are no curly quotes on my keyboard either, but any decently professional typesetting uses them of course.

Angostura 8y ago
do you really want an em-dash there? they are typically used in sentences to introduce a strong break in a parethetical clause, but without using parentheses :)
- function_seven 8y ago
  Is this the grammar equivalent of people misreading the contrived code snippet—often shortened to focus the reader on the concept being discussed (like on StackOverflow)—for the real thing? There, nested both types. I think that works.

blattimwind 8y ago

> substituting it for '?!' and '!?' But these aren't the same!?

lifthrasiir 8y ago
I think the interrobang or its alikes have different functions in written languages and spoken languages. In written languages they all are just a grab bag of mixed-mode reactions including surprise or rhetorical questions. In spoken languages (or corresponding transcripts), I found a distinction between !? and ?! is valuable because there is temporality not usually represented in written languages, and would avoid ‽ for the same reason. Likewise I argue that the number of dots in ellipses is meaningless in written languages (henceforth "standardized" to three dots) but can be actually meaningful in spoken languages.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  How do you speak a 4-dotted ellipsis differently to a 3-dotted one?!
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    It's ...... longer.
  - pssflops 8y ago
    One of the four dots ended your previous sentence before you begin speaking again.
Faaak 8y ago
On the dvorak keyboard, if you compose ? and !, it replaced by ⸘, whereas ! and ? will give ‽
- pc86 8y ago
  ⸘Porque no los dos‽

wodenokoto 8y ago

> but let's imagine we wanted to start a campaign for it to go mainstream. I believe Reddit has tried it for years. Maybe they should have focused on auto correct.

corobo 8y ago
The main problem of using it on reddit is that every reply to your comment will be "oh my god the interrobang!!!", "upvoted for interrobang", etc

azernik 8y ago

I have a different proposal - ligatures. I don't know if you've ever played with a font like FiraCode, but it gives you both fancy typographical symbols and compatibility with existing compilers by defining purely-visual translations between certain sequences of characters and purpose-built glyphs. So for example '!=' is rendered as '≠', '=>' as '⇒', '>=' as '≥', etc. See https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode. They do go a bit overboard, IMO.

Uberphallus 8y ago
Oh, they do. Why should www turn into a ligature?
- pc86 8y ago
  Isn't the whole point of a ligature to visually change a suboptimal representation of something to what it's supposed to represent? E.g. changing != to ≠ visually while the compiler still sees !=? www isn't representing anything so a ligature doesn't make sense. Same with the comment ligatures, the << and <<< comparisons (shouldn't <> change to ≠?). Even the thinner escape \, which I understand the reasoning for, is probably overkill.
  - azernik 8y ago
    Traditionally ligatures have been about abbreviation or aesthetics, not weird approximations in character sets: see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature E.g. when I enable ligatures in Pillars of Eternity, it just makes all the prose look gorgeous.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

pc86 8y ago
Seems odd that you'd get things like ‰ and √ and not an interrobang.

craftyguy 8y ago

It exists on AnySoftKeyboard (FLOSS android keyboard): ‽