Typophile

Origin of "?" and "!"

Alexander Tochilovsky

I am doing some research for an article on punctuation, more specifically on the question mark and the exclamation mark.

What I know so far is that the question mark first appeared on some manuscripts as early as the seventh and eighth centuries. I have also seen a printed sample from the 15th century (1495) that has a small question mark. I am also aware that by the end of the 18th century the rules of modern English punctuation were more or less established.

What I am really interested in finding out is if the original use of the marks was the same as it is today, and how the shape of the marks developed. (In some ways the shape of the question mark is similar to an inverted semicolon, a mark, seen in the 8th century, used to mark a pause halfway between the comma and semicolon.)

I was wondering if someone could recomend sources, or possible places to start researching the origin of the shapes of these marks and the original meaning they might have had.

Dyana Weissman

There is an excellent book called "quirky QWERTY" by Torbj

Alexander Tochilovsky

Thanks for the reference! I'll have to check that book out.

Hrant H Papazian

One very valuable book here is "Pause and effect: an introduction to the history of punctuation in the West" by M B Parkes (thanks to John Downer for mentioning it on the TD list a while back). I once copied some short sections of it - here's some stuff:
- The exclamation mark first appeared in the second half of the 14th century.
- The book doesn't give a firm date about the first appearance of the question mark (except to say that the Castillian practice of a leading inverted question mark started in the 18th century), but it seems to imply that it was during the middle ages.
- An interesting aside: there was once a special question mark for rhetorical questions - one flipped horizontally ("facing" right instead of left).

Also, I remember some Typo-L members once pointing out that the exclamation comes from the two cap letters "I" and "O", while the question mark comes from "Q" and "O"? Not sure.

--

Dyana, that book sounds interesting!

hhp

karen

I think his exact words were "the exclamation mark is a contraction - i and o, from latin io (take note)."

I would post his name here as well, but I'm not sure if that's right etiquette.

John Hudson

An interesting aside: there was once a special question mark for rhetorical questions - one flipped horizontally ("facing" right instead of left).

Unless, presumably, it was a rhetorical question in Arabic. :-)

Hrant H Papazian

Karen, thanks.

> I'm not sure if that's right etiquette.

In my book, anything from a totally public discussion group (like Typo-L) is always fair game. And if you're close enough to a given person to know if he'd mind or not, and you think he wouldn't, then anything that's most probably not very private (like a general-interest post on the ATypI list) is fine too. Formal protocol isn't very human.

> it was a rhetorical question in Arabic

:->
Hmmm. If a phrase in Arabic with some intermixed English (at the end?) ends in a flipped question mark, is it rhetorical or not? What if the last thing in the phrase is an Arabic (I mean Arabic Arabic) number? And since we don't have the luxury of using a flipped question mark here, could those be rhetorical questions?

hhp

Alexander Tochilovsky

Hrant, thanks for the book reference!

I was able to track down the discussion on the Typo-L list. (Karen thanks for the exact quote) I actually subscribe to that list but somehow missed that message.

I have also found a large list of books in the bibliography of Ellen Lupton's exhibition catalogue "Period Styles: A History of Punctuation." Not sure which ones discuss the question and exclamation marks, but the books you guys supplied will give me a good starting point.

Thanks again for the references!

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