Quick trivia question!

[xaq_the_aereon]

(No prize for getting it right, since the answer is in the cut. Sorry!)

Q: What is an "interrobang"?

A) An early firearm developed by the French, similar to a flintlock.
B) A quotation mark.
C) A Canadian term for a press conference.
D) Nothing. It's not even a real word.

The answer is B.

An interrobang is a somewhat outdated quotation mark, comprised of a question mark (or interrogation mark) placed directly atop an exclamation point (or bang, as the two were called by journalists some decades back, hence the name), looking like this:

‽

In countries where sentences that ended in a question mark or exclamation point would start with an inverted one, a sentence ending in an interrobang would start with...you probably guessed it...a gnaborretni.

This is too stupid to make up.


And with that...good night.

Comments

[stryck.livejournal.com]

Interrobangs are cool. They even have a neat name.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

True. You know I love that thing, the interrobang...I so rarely get to use it in a sentence. (kudos to all who got the reference.)

I have to admit they look a little wonky when I try writing them by hand, since my question marks look more like 2s with dots under them...kinda looks like I'm ending a sentence with a backwards dollar sign. XP