17 March 2023

Answers to the punctuation mark quiz

Here are the answers. Note that while many sites mark these as punctuation marks, some sites call some of these as typographical mark rather than punctuation marks.

1. Interrobang. Usually used to ask a question in an exclamatory fashion (like with excitement). e.g. You did what ?!

2. Caret. Usually used to show something is missing. Popular with editors or proofreaders to point out where some text/words might be missing.

3. Reference Mark (dagger or double dagger). Usually used today to draw attention to some footnotes (like when you have already used an asterisk to do so previously on the same page)

4. Section Mark. Often used in legal documents to mark and refer to sections

5. Pilcrow. Used to mark paragraphs

6. Lozenge. I found it the name very interesting. It is called so because originally lozenges were rhombus in shape! Usually used as a bullet point marker.

7. Because Point. Many of you might remember using this in mathematical proofs (remember proving geometry theorems?). There was another one – Therefore Point – which was opposite of this.

8. Guillemets. Usually used to separate out certain amount of texts (e.g. a quote)

9. Sheffer Stroke. This is nowadays used only in mathematical or logical materials – to denote “not both”. (NAND is the exact word)

10. Percontation Point. Not used much these days, it used to be applied to ask rhetorical questions. e.g. How many hands does it take to clap [percontation point here]

Bonus question here
11. Question Comma or Exclamation Comma – serves almost the same purpose as a normal question mark or an exclamation mark (with the dot instead of comma) – except this time you do not end the sentence. e.g. I couldn’t believe my eyes [exclamation comma] but it is true: the sky changed purple etc etc…



Posted March 17, 2023 by Rajib Roy in category "Puzzles

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