Interrobang: What Is It and Why Haven’t You Ever Heard of It‽

Have you ever thought about where punctuation came from?

The Birth of Punctuation

You might think that periods, commas, semicolons, and dashes are as old as written language, but actually, for a long time, people would just write things down and not bother to punctuate them at all. They didn’t even use spaces or differentiate between capital and lowercase letters.

imaginetryingtoreadanentirebooklikethisthatwouldbeawful

Then, around the 3rd century BCE, a librarian named Aristophanes in the Egyptian city of Alexandria decided to do something about it. He was sick of trying to make sense of the scrolls that contained unending strings of words.

Aristophanes’s system of punctuation was simple compared to the many different symbols we use today (he really just used dots at three different heights to mark pauses in speech), but it was the beginning.

Punctuation really took off around the 7th century CE, mainly due to the spread of Christianity. Christianity depended heavily on written teachings, which meant that suddenly the written word was considered to be at least as important (if not more important) than the spoken one. This was a major change from Ancient Greece and Rome, where spoken rhetoric was king.

An archbishop named Isidore of Seville took Aristophanes’s ideas about punctuation and refined them, giving a specific meaning to each mark. The comma and period were the first to be created, and marks that later became semicolons and colons came next. The question mark wasn’t far behind, but the exclamation mark was a little late, arriving around the 15th century.

But what’s all this got to do with the interrobang?

What Is an Interrobang?

An interrobang is a kind of punctuation mark, but it’s a LOT newer than most punctuation marks out there. While the period and comma can be dated back to at least the 7th century CE, the interrobang was created in the early 1960s—compared to the others, this is a newborn punctuation mark.

An interrobang is a combination of a question mark and an exclamation mark. It looks like this: ‽

Apparently, an advertising executive—Martin K. Speckter—invented this punctuation mark because he was sick of his copywriters using exclamation marks and question marks together. He thought that the two marks next to one another created an “ugly, jury-rigged construction,” so he solved the problem by inventing a brand-new punctuation mark. I guess you can just do that‽

The name interrobang comes from the combination of “interrogation mark” (the technical name for a question mark) and “bang” (printers’ slang for an exclamation mark).

An interrobang is usually used at the end of an “exclamatory rhetorical question” (Merriam-Webster), communicating shock, surprise, or disbelief. It’s not very common to see interrobangs in print, which either explains or is the result of the mark’s absence from most keyboards. Usually, when people want to communicate shocked disbelief, they just use a question mark together with an exclamation mark (?! or !?).

When Should You Use It?

Personally, I think the interrobang is sadly underutilized, and we should bring it back. There are just a few rules we need to know before we fully resurrect this punctuation mark:

• An interrobang always comes at the end of a sentence or question.
  • “She said WHAT to Greg‽” yelled Carla.
  • Did he really just win first prize‽
• An interrobang conveys surprise or disbelief.
• Often, interrobangs follow a rhetorical question or excited inquiry.
• Interrobangs add energy to questions, communicating exclamation at the same time.
• Be careful when using these in formal writing—even the pairing of a question mark with an exclamation mark (?! and !?) is frowned upon, so I’d imagine an interrobang would be even more shocking. An interrobang is a decidedly informal punctuation mark.

Now that you know WHEN to use it, let’s talk about HOW.

How To Create It

On a Mac, you can click control + command + space bar and then search for “interrobang” in the dialog box that pops up. The symbol should appear, and then you can select it.

I couldn’t find details about how to create an interrobang on a Windows operating system, so if you can’t use the above method, simply copy the symbol here and save it in a notes doc so you can copy and paste it whenever you’d like: ‽

Examples

“You gave her the job‽” Janey didn’t bother to hide her shocked disbelief.

What could this astounding turn of events mean‽

Could it be‽ Was it TRUE‽

My sister whirled around and shouted, “WHAT did you just say‽”

What do you think about interrobangs? Should we bring them back? Let me know what you think in the comments!

Click here to learn 5 simple rules about question marks!

Sources:

• “America’s Most Trusted Dictionary.” Merriam-Webster. Accessed August 7, 2024. https://www.merriam-webster.com/.
• Houston, Keith. “The Mysterious Origins of Punctuation.” BBC News, February 24, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150902-the-mysterious-origins-of-punctuation.
• Konya, Kelly. “What Is an Interrobang?! Definition and Examples.” Grammarly. Grammarly, January 3, 2024. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/punctuation-capitalization/say-what-meet-the-interrobang/.