(OT) Snark Mark: Punctuation for Irony

Submitted by MCalibur on
Came across an interesting wikipedia entry about the 'snark mark' quite by accident and thought the MGoBlog community could benefit from it. Also referenced in the article: doubt point, certitude point, acclamation point, authority point, indignation point, love point, and the intriguingly named, Interrobang(). Surprised a grammar geek hasn't pointed it out here yet though, I guess one's doing it now. As we all know, irony and sarcasm can be difficult (at best) to detect over written communication. The mark is supposed to be a backward question mark. Alas, even as I write this post I cannot even ctrl+c & ctrl+v such punctuation. Supposedly a 'bracketed' exclamation point -(!)- or question mark -(?)- work in lieu of the real deal, depending on the type of statement being punctuated. I spent 30 seconds brainstorming a way to try and market this but concluded that you probably have to be Apple to pull it off and even then they'd have to make it a "we're cooler than PCs" marketing meme. I certainly wouldn't buy a new keyboard for half of a key.