I was asked recently to come up with an icebreaker for my running club one Sunday morning. Naturally, I chose favorite punctuation marks.
I expected some attempts to outdo others with more obscure marks, because runners are like that.
I did not expect the interrobang. (h/t Duncan and Kristen)
The interrobang is exactly as exciting as its name suggests. It combines the function of the question mark and the exclamation point into one tidy package, for those times when you must ask a question in an exclamatory tone.
You run how far‽
We’re running up a mountain today‽
How many 800s on the track‽
BodyGlide goes where‽
You get the idea.
The interrobang is the brainchild of one Martin Speckter, who ran an advertising agency and in 1962 thought a single punctuation mark after certain rhetorical questions would pack a bigger punch in copywriting. This is both very Mad Men and very every journalist who ever begged a savage copyeditor to keep one extra character in a story. Speckter asked trade magazine readers to submit names and graphic designs for the new mark.
Interrobang is a portmanteau of sorts, a combination of interrogatio, the Latin (naturally) word for “rhetorical question,” and bang, printer slang for the exclamation point.
Other names considered included exclamaquest and QuizDing, so I think we can all agree that Speckter chose correctly.
If you play chess, you may also recognize interrobang as the name of a questionable move.
Now, go forth and use the interrobang as the answer to all your icebreaker questions!
My step father was in the circle, as it were, and I hold one of the original interrobang typefaces as a souvenir that reflects the general interrobang of reality in my young life. Thx for the memory.