Oh, calm down.
I don't know if it's just the way that I've been writing lately, but whenever I'm composing an e-mail at work, it usually involves asking a helpful coworker to answer a series of questions for me. Here are two very similar examples of what I might possibly write:
Hey Don Shlombonni. Which of these cereals is the best?
~Kix
~Crispix
~Cheerios
and...
Hey Don Shlombonni. Which of these cereals is the best:
~Kix
~Crispix
~Cheerios
The answer is Kix, but do you understand my problem here? I am in desperate need of a punctuation mark that captures the essence of both the "?" and the ":"
I'm not even gonna try to put a period at the end of that last sentence.
Now, I suppose you could just put the colon and question mark together, like...
Which of these cereals is the best:?
or...
Which of these cereals is the best?:
But I'm sure these must already be stupid emoticons for "I'm smoking a pipe now" or "This is what a penis might sort of look like." Honestly friends, I think nobody'll argue when I say WE MUST INVENT A NEW PUNCTUATION SYMBOL RIGHT NOW. Maybe a question mark with two dots below it? Or a question mark with one dot in the middle of its loop? I'm not sure, but either way, this looks like a job for Stefan.
That is, of course, unless I'm missing some grammatical rule here, in which case, I'll probably still proceed with twisting the punctutional system to my own devices, thank you very much.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Colon Questions
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Crispix.
In an effort to answer your stupid question, I encountered something more unbelievable: The Interobang.
You know when you end a sentence like this?! Indicating you're surprised, and also not understanding what's going on?
That collusion of two punctuation marks is called an interobang. And, according to one site I looked at, has NO PLACE IN THE ACADEMIC WORLD.
However, also like your request to Stefan, one person has gone far enough to try and make the interobang an official punctuation mark, only referring to an exclamation point mixed with a question mark. Check out the official interobang website for more details.
And, actually, now that I think of it, that did answer your question. When you have a question next to a colon, it's called an interobang.
THE END
Also its spelled "INTERROBANG." Sorry about that.
Lemme add one more thing. The correct usage is a question mark, only. The colon is used for same sentence lists. You should actually use a question mark, and then list everything, starting with a lower case, and ending with additional question marks. For example (oh crap what do I put here let's say a colon):
Hey Don Shlombonni. Which of these cereals is the best?
kix?
crispix?
cheerios?I may be totally wrong about this.
Even if you're right about it, it's still stupid. Question mark plus anti-capitalization?
Oh no.
What's the word for making a capitalized word lowercase?
I did not mean to open this nest of bees.
I would eat a cereal called interrobang.
I'd only eat 'em if they were called "Interrobangs!"
Pluralized exclamations just taste better.
They'd probably actually have to be called
Interrobangs?!
...as if they were unsure/dubious that was the name of the cereal.
Post a Comment