Section sign

§
Section sign
Punctuation apostrophe ( ’ ' ) brackets ( [ ], ( ), { }, ⟨ ⟩ ) colon ( : ) comma ( , ، 、 ) dash ( ‒, –, —, ― ) ellipsis ( …, ..., . . . ) exclamation mark ( ! ) full stop / period ( . ) guillemets ( « » ) hyphen ( ‐ ) hyphen-minus ( - ) question mark ( ? ) quotation marks ( ‘ ’, “ ”, ' ', " " ) semicolon ( ; ) slash / stroke / solidus ( /,  ⁄  ) Word dividers interpunct ( · ) space ( ) ( ) ( ) General typography ampersand ( & ) asterisk ( * ) at sign ( @ ) backslash ( \ ) bullet ( • ) caret ( ^ ) dagger ( †, ‡ ) degree ( ° ) ditto mark ( ″ ) inverted exclamation mark ( ¡ ) inverted question mark ( ¿ ) number sign / pound / hash ( # ) numero sign ( № ) obelus ( ÷ ) ordinal indicator ( º, ª ) percent, per mil ( %, ‰ ) basis point ( ‱ ) pilcrow ( ¶ ) prime ( ′, ″, ‴ ) section sign ( § ) tilde ( ~ ) underscore / understrike ( _ ) vertical bar / broken bar / pipe ( ¦, | ) Intellectual property copyright symbol ( © ) registered trademark ( ® ) service mark ( ℠ ) sound recording copyright ( ℗ ) trademark ( ™ ) Currency currency (generic) ( ¤ ) currency (specific) ( ₳ ฿ ₵ ¢ ₡ ₢ ₠ $ ₫ ৳ ₯ € ƒ ₣ ₲ ₴ ₭ ₺ ℳ ₥ ₦ ₧ ₱ ₰ £ ₹ ₨ ₪ ₸ ₮ ₩ ¥ ៛ ) Uncommon typography asterism ( ⁂ ) index / fist ( ☞ ) interrobang ( ‽ ) irony punctuation ( ؟ ) lozenge ( ◊ ) reference mark ( ※ ) tie ( ⁀ ) Related diacritical marks logic symbols whitespace characters non-English quotation style ( « », „ ” ) In other scripts Chinese punctuation Hebrew punctuation Japanese punctuation Korean punctuation
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The section sign (§, Unicode U+00A7, HTML entity §) is a typographical character used mainly to refer to a particular section of a document, such as a legal code. It is also called "double S", "sectional symbol", "the legal doughnut", signum sectiōnis.

It is frequently used along with the pilcrow (¶), or paragraph sign. When duplicated, as §§, it is read as the plural "sections" (§§ 13–21), much as "pp." (pages) is the plural of "p." (short for the Latin pagina). The likely origin of the section sign is the digraph formed by the combination of two S'es (from the Latin signum sectionis).

Like the dagger (†) and double dagger (‡), it is also sometimes used to link to a footnote where the asterisk (*) is already in use on a given page; however, these usages are declining in favor of numbered footnotes, usually linked by a superscripted and/or square bracketed number.

Typing character

• In Unicode, it is encoded U+00A7 § section sign (HTML: § §)
• Emacs: C-x 8 S
• HTML: §
• Mac OS CSA (Canadian French) Keyboard layout: ⌥ Opt+⇧ Shift+S
• Mac OS U.S. Keyboard layout: ⌥ Opt+5. U.S. Extended Keyboard layout: ⌥ Opt+6
• Mac OS U.K. Keyboard layout: § key.
• iPhone 123 hold following key until alternative is displayed & §
• TeX: \S
• US-International keyboard layout and UK-International keyboard layout: AltGr+⇧ Shift+S
• Ubuntu alternative to US/UK keyboard option: AltGr+⇧ Shift release OS; Ctrl+⇧ Shift+UA7↵ Enter
• Vim, in insert mode: Ctrl+K, SE; Ctrl+V, 167
• Windows AZERTY keyboard: § key (obtained as ⇧ Shift+!).
• Windows Alt code: Alt+0167; Alt+21; Alt+31509 (on numeric keypad)
• X Window System, with a compose key: Compose+S+O, or Compose+!+S
• X Window System, without a compose key: Ctrl+⇧ Shift+U00A7

In popular culture

A modified version of the section sign is used in the Maxis games SimCity 3 and later and The Sims series, as the symbol of the in-game currency, the simoleon. The symbol is used like the $ sign to denote the US dollar.

The sections symbol is used to denote chapters and sections in David Foster Wallace's novel The Pale King, left unfinished with his death in 2008, which deals heavily with the labor and lives of American IRS workers.

The section symbol is used in the 2012 computer game XCOM: Enemy Unknown as a nationality-neutral currency symbol.

The section symbol is used by horse racing rating service Timeform to denote a horse is unreliable. Such a horse is usually referred to as a "squiggle horse".

See also

• Scilicet