314- Interrobang

99% Invisible

• Episode: 314- Interrobang
• Website: 99% Invisible
• Feed URL: http://feeds.99percentinvisible.org/99percentinvisible
• Duration: 00:32:06
• Published: 2018-07-11 01:55

In the spring of 1962, an ad man named Martin Speckter was thinking about advertising when he realized something: many ads asked questions, but not just any questions -- excited and exclamatory questions -- a trend not unique to his time. Got milk?! Where's the beef?! Can you hear me now?! So he asked himself: could there be a mark that made it clear (visually on a page) that something is both a question and an exclamation?!

Speckter was also the editor of the typography magazine *TYPEtalks, *so  in March of 1962, in an article for the magazine titled “Making a New Point, Or How About That…”, Speckter proposed the first new mark of English language punctuation in 300 years: the interrobang.

Plus, we revisit the story of another special character, the octothorpe.

Interrobang