Irony punctuation
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The irony mark (French: point d’ironie) is a punctuation mark that purports to indicate that a sentence should be understood at a second level. It is illustrated by a backward-facing question mark.
History
This mark was proposed by the French poet Alcanter de Brahm (alias Marcel Bernhardt) at the end of the 19th century. It was in turn taken by Hervé Bazin in his book Plumons l’oiseau (1966), in which the author proposes several other innovative punctuation marks, such as the doubt (
), certainty (
), acclamation (
), authority (
), indignation (
) and love (
) marks. It was also featured in the art periodical Point d’ironie by Agnes b. in 1997.
Examples
- If love is blind, why is lingerie so popularFile:11px-Pointdironie-.jpg
- I'd give you a taste but your tongue's in the stewFile:11px-Pointdironie-.jpg
Usage
This mark has never really been used beyond occasional appearances in artistic or literary publications.
There are several possible explanations for the irony mark’s lack of success as a punctuation mark:
- It is unfamiliar.
- It is unnecessary.
- Marks such as the question mark or the exclamation mark are generally useful in transcribing an oral intonation to a punctuated statement. As such, an ironic phrase need not be punctuated in a certain manner. The context alone often allows it to be recognized as such.
- Irony often relies on a clever use of subtlety, a quality that is hindered by the explicit illustration of ironic intent with a punctuation mark.
- A simple phrase in itself is not necessarily the ironic unit of text, but the whole text itself may be ironic. The use of an atypical character throughout a text of several pages could be cumbersome.
Certain emoticons, such as ;-) , have a typographical value that approximates that of the irony mark, and which was indeed the function of many of the first smileys.
In IT and printing
Although this character has never been officially adopted by typographers, it happens to look the same as the backward question mark (؟) found in Arabic.