Punctuate this, fella
Over on Read Street, The Sun’s book blog, a reader has suggested a new punctuation mark, the tentative hyphen. It’s the tilde, to be used when the writer isn’t sure whether to write two words, a single word or a hyphenated compound word. It’s hedge-your-bets punctuation.
I have an alternative solution to the problem of not knowing whether a compound should be hyphenated: Buy a dictionary. They’re in the stores.
Here’s another: Hire a copy editor to go over your writing. There’s probably more amiss with it than the hyphenation.
Proposals for new punctuation should be greeted with skepticism. Remember the interrobang from the 1960s? The question mark superimposed over an exclamation point was supposed to be handy for statements that were exclamatory but in the form or nature of a question — what the hell, for example. It seems to have passed on, along with the typewriter that was necessary to produce it.* A period usually suffices.
There is also the irony mark, or snark, a reverse quotation mark that a French writer decided would be useful to indicate a statement with an extra layer of meaning, such as sarcasm. Uh-huh. Let’s repunctuate Swift’s “Modest Proposal” with snarks to see how much that improves the work. If your mastery of irony is so feeble that you need punctuation to indicate it, you’re playing out of your league.
As I suggested in a comment at Read Street, perhaps it would be better to master the punctuation we have before reaching for novelties. What the hell.
* If Microsoft has included it in Word, just don’t tell me.
Comments
Don't you think the interrobang is better than the often-used alternative?!?!?!?
Posted by: Bucky | July 22, 2008 10:31 AM
Using ?!?!?!? just makes your writing look like its done by a 12-year old girl.
BTW, is this D@L's very own Rocky Mountain Bucky?
Posted by: Robert (the Single One) | July 22, 2008 11:27 AM
It's there (Really‽‽‽) but you have to know how to find it... Unicode 203D, if that helps.
Posted by: Kel | July 22, 2008 11:35 AM
I asked you not to tell me that.
Posted by: John McIntyre | July 22, 2008 11:47 AM
Actually, I'm relieved to discover that some of these people give punctuation any thought at all. dont u c LOL
Posted by: Mike Livingston | July 22, 2008 12:41 PM
'whether a two write two words' ?
JEM: Fossil remnant from an earlier version of the sentence, now fixed. Thanks for pointing it out.
Posted by: Dave | July 22, 2008 2:49 PM
RtSO...Shhhhhhhhhh
Posted by: Bucky | July 22, 2008 4:03 PM
'Thanks for poitning it out.' ?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Posted by: Dave | July 22, 2008 4:37 PM
Here’s another: Hire a copy editor to go over your writing.
But whatever you do, don't hire two. Because I have never in my life found two copy editors that believe the same thing about hyphenation.
(Everyone should ideally agree with me, because I'm always right, but that's neither here nor there.)
Posted by: Jen | July 22, 2008 5:10 PM
Point taken, Dave.
Posted by: John McIntyre | July 22, 2008 6:20 PM
Some science-fiction fans, back in the '40s or '50s, invented two useful alternative forms of punctuation. Or, rather, two forms of punctuation that would be useful if anyone other than science-fiction fans understood how they worked.
Quasi-quotes were used to show quotations from (often drunken) conversations, quotations that might, by their very nature, be recalled less than completely accurately. They took the form of underlined single quote marks.
The other fannish punctuation style of note was the use of text overstruck with dashes to indicate irony, sarcasm, and the like. Rather like the use of "sous rature" by postmodern philosophers. But more nerdy.
Posted by: Mark | November 22, 2008 3:42 PM
Mark, if you check out the Dining@Large blog you'll see that Elizabeth Large occasionally uses the second technique you described (I think). See her post of Nov. 21st "Dealing with a nasty post" where she crosses out some words. Is that an example of what you meant?
Posted by: Laura Lee | November 22, 2008 7:47 PM