Scott Bush

I’m pretty excited to introduce to you a new punctuation mark: the Questlamation mark. It’s gonna be the biggest thing since the asterisk.

What is it, you ask? Much like “Spenglish” (Spanish + English) and “Brangelina” (Brad + Angelina), the Questlamation mark is a combination of the question mark (?) and the exclamation mark (!). I found myself needing to add emphasis to a question and decided there was nothing wrong with simply using both punctuation marks together, as in: “You did what for how many green jellybeans?!” But in the never-ending quest for optimization, I created a hybrid, and I present it to you now:

It utility is matched only by its potential for variation. While the version above is the ubiquitous standby, Times New Roman, I’ve also created a version using the sans-serif font Verdana:

Note the slight irregularity of the shared dot. To create the proper alignment of each mark’s stem in relation to its dot, I had to warp the sides of once-regular dot. I think it gives this example a hand-crafted authenticity.

And, to avoid any claims of bias toward the interrogative over the emphasis, I created the questlamation mark a cousin, the exclamestion mark:

Sadly, neither of these extremely useful punctuation marks can be found in your favorite fonts. But don’t despair because the introduction of the Euro symbol showed us that such an undertaking is possible. I suggest you write your congressperson and ask–no, demand–legislation be introduced requiring the questlamation mark be required in all fonts and on keyboards no later than 2012. Oh, and also have them see about adding the word “questlamation” added to dictionaries so that all these red squiggles under the word go away!

Only one thing can temper my joy on this, the day I introduce a new punctuation mark to the world: the knowledge that I’m not the first to do so. The folks over at FontFeed.com have a post about the “Interrobang.” (For those non-Unix and non-programming geeks, this name is derived from “interrogative—to question—and “bang,” which is for some strange reason, shorthand for the exclamation mark to that group). But, just like Newton and Leibniz, I swear I came up with the idea independent of anyone else. What’s worse is they link to two separate fonts that include not only an “interrobang” character, but two other exclamation mark hybrids. Here’s an image of them in Amplitude Wide Bold:

Well, I shouldn’t be sad. The more exposure the world has to this punctuation mark, the greater its acceptance and adoption will be. (But id better be called the questlamation mark instead of interrobang!). So, will you please get out there and start asking questions with a lot of emphasis