Interrobang?! — Interrobang!?

  • Article

One of the least heralded, but arguably most important new features of the new ClearType font collection is the support for a previously little used character—the interrobang. This character was developed in 1962 by Martin Speckter with the intention of conveying additional information for advertising text.

People have many different opinions on this character. The reactions have varied from, “You want to add what character to the fonts‽” or “Cool, when will I be able to use it in the font‽”

These fonts are not the first fonts that Microsoft has worked on that support this character. Other fonts include Arial Unicode, Palatino Linotype, Lucida Sans Unicode, Frutiger Linotype, and Berling Antiqua.

Here is a look at the interrobangs in the new ClearType font collection.

Greg

Note: if in the above sample sentences you see a rectangle, that is not the shape of the interrobang. That just means the font being used in your reader or browser doesn’t support the interrobang. If you are using Internet Explorer with font embedding, you should see the correct character.

Edit: Update Image Reference.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    December 22, 2005
    Huh? What does it mean?

  • Anonymous
    December 22, 2005
    seems kind of like a useless combination to me. I understand the point, and all, but other compound punction -- the semi-colon -- at least serves a purpose that is independent of the two marks it combines. The interrobang seems to just be a contraction without a whole lot of usefullness. Is there really that much savings between !? and the combination thereof?

  • Anonymous
    December 22, 2005
    Hideous, all of them, especially that first one.

  • Anonymous
    December 22, 2005
    You can't really expect the glyphs to look gorgeous - the character hasn't been used enough to see any real refinement of it's shape, & it's a difficult one in any case.

    That said, they do look pretty bad, especially the one for Candara. It's not tall enough to fit the detail nicely at smaller sizes.

  • Anonymous
    December 22, 2005
    I don't suppose this one will be used much (good luck finding it on a regular keyboard) ;)

    Plus you can't really recognize it at smaller sizes. It just looks like a mess of something.

  • Anonymous
    December 23, 2005
    Greg or John,

    Do the C* fonts have a dlig OpenType feature that will replace ?+! with the interrobang?

    Jernj - easy access type ALT 8253 or type 203D and hit ALT X in Office apps.

  • Anonymous
    December 23, 2005
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 26, 2005
    It seems like, as opposed to what you're saying, the reactions do not really vary. Seems like a badly drawn letter P to me.

  • Anonymous
    December 27, 2005
    >It seems like a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

    I agree. Might as well start working on other unnecessary combinations.

    How about a combination of @ and $ for when you wwant to talk about a number of items at a certain price, or ^ and * for when you want to insert footnotes, or # and % for when you're feeling all math-y.

    There's nothing that the interrobang does or represents that can't be represented easier and faster just by typing !? or ?! manually. it only takes two shifted keystrokes to accomplish, is already compatible with modern keyboards, and is widely recognized.

    So, yay, there's room inside the fonts for lots of additional, useless characters. Great. But you'd have about ten times the adoption rate if you'd decided to insert a handful of Star Trek or Lord of the Rings alphabets in there instead. Common usage or not, the true geeks'll use 'em.

  • Anonymous
    December 27, 2005
    Add some legends to tell us which fonts are which, please. I am not sure a single image is the way to go.

    Is John Hudson saying they all look "hideous," even the one he drew, if indeed he did? Without font IDs I can't tell.

  • Anonymous
    December 27, 2005
    First row: Constantia, Candara, Calibri
    Second row: Corbel, Consolas, Cambria

  • Anonymous
    December 27, 2005
    I would argue that intent is clearer when a character is devoted to a meaning. Is it clear how to parse ?! or ?!‽ How do you interpret *&%.!?‽
    For quite a while people have been working on ways to better communicate intention with written language. This might help. I all depends on what becomes convention.
    It is quite easy in Microsoft Word to use auto-correction to add the interrobang. You just have to make sure the font supports the character.

  • Anonymous
    December 28, 2005
    "One of the least heralded, but arguably most important new features of the new ClearType font collection [...]"

    Arguably most important? You aren't serious, are you? I'd like to hear that argument!! (That was the previously unheralded ligature known as the bangbang.)

    I don't mind the idea of an interrobang, but I think the example you provided in text looks awful. It's so short and small (at normal text sizes) that it's nearly illegible. And it doesn't seem to look much better at different sizes in IE or Firefox. Why isn't it at least the height of a normal question mark or exclamation point?

    Personally, what I like about the interrobang is that it solves the question as to whether a ?! at the end of a sentence is grammatically correct. And it fills its niche elegantly, the way an ampersand is a ligature of et. But if the symbol has been around since the early 60's and still hasn't made it's mark it's doubtful that it's going to take off anytime soon.

    BTW, I've always assumed that the correct style of "?!" is the question mark first. Does anyone use the exclamation point first?

  • Anonymous
    January 04, 2006
    I don't know if it's related to the interrobang but the Constantia Bold font cannot display numbers on my MacOS X system. Constantia regular face can but not Bold, Italic, nor Bold Italic.

  • Anonymous
    January 04, 2006
    I just tried all the styles of Constantia on Mac OS X (10.4.3) and the numbers appear to display correctly.

    It should also be noted that Constantia is not currently licensed or sold for the Macintosh.

    Greg

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2006
    I have proposed the inverted interrobang (or gnaborretni) for encoding in the UCS for use in Spanish and Galician. See http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2935.pdf

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2006
    Michael Everson wrote: "I have proposed the inverted interrobang (or gnaborretni)..."

    Hey, if you're going to do something like spell the word backwords because the symbol is backwards, you might as well go all out. I mean, the symbol is backwards and upside down, right? Thus, I give you: Bueporrafui

  • Anonymous
    January 13, 2006
    Man that's just silly.

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2006
    To DanMcCarty: you use ?! for sentences rather asking than exclamating, and !? for these, which are primarly 'shouty'. Both forms are correct.

  • Anonymous
    February 09, 2006
    tough being the new mark in town...
    isn't there room on the block for a truly
    reflective character?!?!
    the very essence of melded emotions is captured
    in the interrobang
    If you aint found a use for the IB (?!) then yall's missin out big!

      000
     0X0X0
      0☺0
     |  |
    / |  |
      |  |
      /☻☻
    _/    _


     

  • Anonymous
    February 10, 2006
    I don't know if it's related to the interrobang but the Constantia Bold font cannot display numbers on my MacOS X system. Constantia regular face can but not Bold, Italic, nor Bold Italic.  
    Me too :-( on Linux... Why??

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2006
    I think, the topology is wrong here. There need to be two (2) dots, and the process should be closer to making a ligature, more than an !? overstrike.

  • Anonymous
    April 14, 2006
    Count me as a fan of the much maligned interrobang. It's just so spunky and over-excited that it makes me smile. It's punctuation with too much caffeine.

    What bothers me is that too many fonts resort to unimaginative renderings of this mark -- simply superimposing ! over ? and calling it a day. The Candara and Constantia interrobangs have style going for them, which I appreciate. For my money, however, the interrobang in Palatino Linotype is still the prettiest one in any font.

  • Anonymous
    April 17, 2006
    Loved your fontblog.
    Have you been to my web page?INTERROGANG-MKS.COM

    If you're connected with Microsoft, why don't you make it easier to use theinterrobang?  I get questions all the time about where to find one.

  • Anonymous
    April 29, 2006
    The interrobang is a genious character.

    Somehow, I simply don't understand the problem some of you have with it...

    Why, when given a unique, easy-access, clean finish character, would you choose not to use it‽

    Whatever.

    Oh, and yes, that was an interrobang.
    ^_^

  • Anonymous
    May 11, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 11, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 26, 2006
    I love our Typography group.  They have some really cool fonts and the newest feature added to the...

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2006
    http://blogs.msdn.com/descapa/archive/2006/05/26/608416.aspx

  • Anonymous
    July 04, 2006
    I think everyone on here needs to recover from their font snobbery; who cares if there's a new punctuation mark YOU don't want to use?
    Until they revise Strunk & White to accommodate the "interrobang" you people need to find a better reason to be indignant.

  • Anonymous
    July 24, 2006
    I agree with Melissa's post above completely.  

  • Anonymous
    August 08, 2006
    Useless or not, you've got to admit "Interrobang!?" is a great name for a band.

  • Anonymous
    August 11, 2006
    So how do I use this critter? for instance I have Lucida Sans Uni Code, and Palatino Linotype, but cannot see how to create the interrobang!

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 02, 2006
    I have seen other versions of the interrobang that look better.  I think is a neat little thing.

  • Anonymous
    November 12, 2006
    I love the iterrobang. I use it in the book I am writing. It is quite useful.

  • Anonymous
    February 08, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 10, 2007
    Great character, the interrobang. Nice to see it just as its starting to change and evolve. To Ben - what does your university project on the interrobang involve? Sounds interesting!

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2007
    Um, it's not brilliant, it's stupid, because you can't see it. In the text above, introducing the character, it just looks like a question mark with a bit of schmutz on it. You can see it okay at 72 point, but what's the point of that? The only intelligible way to use it is to type them separately, so you can see them separately: "?!". And it's ungrammatical. I guess it's appealing to people who think ~ is a good character to close a sentence with.

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2007
    PingBack from http://nxtbook.com/blog/2006/06/06/rise-of-the-interrobang/

  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2007
    Ah, the interrobang.  We have a great love of it, and support its use.  We also invite everyone, opposers and supporters alike, to join in on the Interrobang diologue at http://www.myspace.com/punctuationliberation  

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2007
    PingBack from http://nassoskappa.blackwhitemag.net/?p=1061

  • Anonymous
    June 12, 2007
    PingBack from http://www.lsgraphicdesign.it/?p=795

  • Anonymous
    February 29, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2008
    Agree with dan man and others. There is just no need for the font snobbery being shown. I also don't understand why it is shorter than its sister punctuation marks. If it were the full height, perhaps it would be more legible.

  • Anonymous
    April 23, 2008
    I think some of you have entirely too much time on your hands.

  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2008
    One of the least heralded, but arguably most important new features of the new ClearType font collection is the support for a previously little used character—the interrobang. This character was developed in 1962 by Martin Speckter with the intention

  • Anonymous
    November 12, 2008
    You can not learn Arabic in it

  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2009
    When I first began reading the comment thread, I was truly disappointed with the amount of nay-sayers!  But I read on. Those who approve seem to have much more practical and intellectual arguments... Those who don't are not following the larger context in which the necessity for the character was born. And they apparently just can't seem to fathom that its purpose is not to increase the speed at which you type. Last I checked, no one needs to instant message anyone any faster. Working in the graphic communications field, I find clarity of written expression -- in general -- is sorely lacking! The interrobang is useful in many circumstances. And a P.S.: I'm currently working on a masthead that combines the ! and , -- does anyone know if other less traditional punctuation combinations have been given names? Examples and more info at: http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=WO&NR=9219458&KC=&FT=E

  • Anonymous
    March 04, 2009
    PingBack from http://www.withoutatraceroute.com/2009/03/are-you-alive%e2%80%bd/

  • Anonymous
    July 17, 2010
    www.fontspring.com/.../contax-pro