I’m not sure if I like this or not. On one hand, if it becomes common, people will realize when I’m just writing above their level and not being snide. On the other hand I don’t really give a damn about people too stupid to pick up on context clues in the first place.

This is not a meant to be a replacement for the joys of subtlety in conversation. I use it myself, through the ’.~’ proxy, to add clarity in busy realtime chats. With close friends, one linear dialog may have several concurrent threads (because we both type simultaneously), and the timing of sarcasm may be inadvertantly lost. In a mixed online videogaming team, I may be speaking in a mixed group of long-time, new- and non-friends simultaneously, and it helps all understand more similarly what I am really saying.

Conversely, I stay in touch with my family via standalone IM and we have yet to have any need for it, even when my sister and I are comparing the finer points of our work in less than enthusiastic terms.

Suffice to say, if we put it there, it can be used when it suits. And, still, some peole will abuse it.You know the sort: “OMG.~ STFU! LOL!1!! Hi.~ I <3 U.~ Yer smart.~”

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

It kind of looks like an ellipsis to me,

It will be quite impressive if this takes off. The last new character to come into common use that I know if is the Euro currency mark, and that had more than a dozen governments pushing its use.

I don’t think that this will take off. Even the interrobang was never really successful. But that is way ahead of this mark. Didn’t Mencken suggest this in the 30s? If it hasn’t caught on in the mean time, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I’m not holding my breath. I’m singing. Activism in type!

I don’t see the interrobang as being ’ahead’ of this character. Its adoption stems from other issues. It offers no communicative value over !? and/or ?!, and is less clear than either of those, as it removes the inflection that ordering the marks offers, towards being rhetorical or actually a question. Additionally, there are unicode spaces for both, allowing individual glyphs, if a designer prefers. Those preceded the late inclusion of the interrobang. I find it mostly ’cute’ but redundant. The comparisons are unfortunate, however, since the purpose of the irony mark isn’t to be visually ’smart’ (though I think it is), but to convey a new meaning to a sentence, that neither ’.’ or ’~’ does.

The irony mark (in one form) was first suggested in the late 19th cetury, according to the Wiki-p, and recirculated in the late ‘60s. The interrobang, Martin K. Speckter’s 1962 invention, was, in my opinion, inspired by the comic and newspaper book use of ’!?’, since the 1920’s. I think some of Menken’s ideas were better than others. This one keeps popping up.

Right now, people are beginning to use the tilde, along with lots of other hacks to convey this idea anyway. I’m suggesting standardizing, more than inventing, and inviting others to do so. By “cheating” with OpenType we might expedite adoption.

If it looks too similar to a point of ellipsis, that sounds important. Any suggestions on improving that? An up-sweep, more curve?

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

I think that with time it could catch on. Like you pointed out, ordinary people have been picking up the tilde from math/programming nerds, so I think that if this eventually found its way into fonts used for personal communication, it could become common quickly.

At display sizes or at the end of a line I don’t think it would be easily mistaken, but in an extended body of text it would resemble an ellipsis in quick reading, as it presents similar color and spacing issues. Overemphasising the uptick of the baseline tilde could get the form interpreted as a sideways question mark instead of a sideways exclamation point. Keeping the whole assemblage longer than an ellipsis in the same font might limit the confusion, but present more spacing issues. Both seem to visually indicate a verbal hesitation or sustained fade, and that’s not always intended in an ironic comment.

As the new kid on the block, perhaps I would be better advised to avoid controversies, but.... irony is a pet subject of mine...

I think that before coming up with “ironic punctuation”, we might become better versed in irony, specifically it’s tripartite persective. As a synonym for sarcasm, it loses much of it’s power.... and it is a powerful rhetorical tool.

see: DOHI

geo.

Just a random thought:

In this age where communication has been dumbed down to chatting we depend so much on emoticons that I think we’ve lost some of our ability to use words. I’m completely guilty of this myself. I find myself feeling the urge to use emoticons when I write to people just to make sure they know what emotion I’m trying to betray.

I wonder if we really need an irony mark?

I think this is true of films too Tiff. Seem much great dialogue in movies made recently? Even pop stuff like Star Wars—look at the difference between the dialogue in the old original 3 films and the current 3 pretenders. the whole world has forgotten how to write or eventalk (unless theyre on a cell phone :-(. No wonder people need an “Applause sign” on TV audiences.

ChrisL

To be fair, cued applause has been used ever since television programs were first performed before a live audience, and likely has its roots in Vaudeville or even earlier forms of theatre.
But I’m not a theatre expert. Why do I feel compelled to spell it that way?!

That is a wonderful link! The illustrated sarcastic examples in the orig. post were chosen for their inherent brevity. In this proposal, verbal contradiction as irony, as well as the surreal and tragic are all assumed to be identified with one mark, most likely used at the ’revelation’, which may be the end of sentence or passage. This still leaves something for a clever reader or writer to play with, too.

It could be appropriately used, amongst other places, where one has concocted an entire hoax: Wells’s “War of the Worlds”, Menken’s “Bathtub Hoax”, Hendersen’s “The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster”, etc. At the very end, after taking in the audience for the entire duration, it could be something of a “gotchya”, or escape clause (at the author’s discretion, of course).

Presumably, the most common uses might be in sarcasm’s identification, or to denote false innuendo, but I feel there is no limitation to simply that.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

I use emoticons because they work. I try not to do it too much, but it is an effective tool. I don’t think any written system will every convey all that the spoken word offers, but writing has its own advantages. This just might be something that contributes to helping it do even more. And, it isn’t as smarmy as a ;) or a 8-O

Keep in mind we romaticize the past. Excellent literary works from the European nobles were written on the backs of an immense illiterate poor class. And while we remeber the genius of works like Star Wars (originals), we forget that 20 craptastic movies came out with glaring ly pointless pulp dialogue those same summers. Speaking of which, Pulp fiction and Memento are pretty recent examples of simplistic speech worked to high effectiveness.

The potential of the irony mark could be exploited in very creative ways by contemporary authors. I would be fascinated to see what Kurt Vonnegut or Mark Z. Danielewski could do with the idea, much the way the run circles around our minds with the poetic play of existing words and formatting.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

Miss Tiffany -
I don’t think we “need” it, but it would be nice. I don’t need power tools to build a house, but dang it if I don’t take advantage of them!

Sometimes, I feel the same way about ’U’ and ’V’. The only word that justifies having both is ’Uvula’.~

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

:-) .~

This is a really good idea.~

I think if anything we don’t need any more punctuation; an irony mark is an excuse for a weak vocabulary, poor grammar, and further complicates the lives of people who have no interest in ever consulting style guides to learn how punctuation should be used.

But I’m also not going to take it upon myself to convince the people of the world that they should be better writers. So anything that makes reading the gibberish that most people spew out these days is a big help. I recently used the word aegis in a sentence and was the only person in the room who knew what the word meant. If I have to keep communicating with people like that, I’ll throw in the towel and accept whatever help comes my way.

I wasn’t making a call for all the world to improve their communication skills. It was a random thought brought about because of this new thread and the idea of an irony mark. I also wasn’t romanticizing about the past. Unless, of course, we no longer consider good communication a part of our present, then I might have been.

I use emoticons too. They are very useful in online communication.

My bad. I’ll keep my thoughts to myself. As you were. :^P

“I’ll keep my thoughts to myself”

AS IF!!! (:^P

ChrisL

Even pop stuff like Star Wars—look at the difference between the dialogue in the old original 3 films and the current 3 pretenders. the whole world has forgotten how to write or eventalk

reminds me of this comic

Jpad—
I doubt more punctuation will complicate their lives, if they never check style guides. Just ours.

Another thing to consider, there is a chance that that this time in the history of English that we have the exactly right amount of puctuation, but then, perhaps we have too many already. Hypothetically, what might you remove, to simplify things?

Ms. Tiffany—
I always look forward to your responses, they are always more coherent and more on-topic than, oh, say, mine. How would you say that chatting (meaning via live real-time text?) has dumbed down communication?

Whether or not something assists communication seems to vary. It depends on what and how we are comunication. There are lots of different tools used for different documents: line numbers in pleadings, carets in editing, emoticons in chat, footnotes in theses, and so forth.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

P.S. If we need to get rid of some crufty old punctuation to make room for the irony mark, my vote is on some of the plethora of quotation-like marks.

At least for me, the criteria for good communication is how close the interpreted meaning come across relative to the speaker’s/writer’s intention.

Does the concerns of medium and tool still matter, then? Of course, but after clarity. My guideline is, if they help to clarify your message, then use it. If not, then don’t.

I admit that it’s a sin that I still do so many times :)

And let’s not go into the whole “the medium is the message” philosophy, that’s so PoMo .~

Cuttle fish: Both seem to visually indicate a verbal hesitation or sustained fade, and that’s not always intended in an ironic comment.

You’ve got the idea of exactly what I am going for. A touch of the verbal flavor, but not a caricature of it. Irony may be conveyed sometimes with nothing more that a natural tone and quick flick of a single eyebrow, and I would like to get that in there, too. Perhaps increasing the height of the right end, and keeping the left end of the stroke very narrow? Or squashing more? More of a sideways squat-exclamation than a dot-tilde look. Approximately N width, not M?

Here is a better example of non-sarcastic use of the irony mark, as well as a study of design in body text:

Here, the mark is used once to imply that some subtext exists in the preceding sentence, and it is not as irreverent as first appears. Next, it suggests a wry smile or knowing smirk, recognizing the implicitly false nature of the statement. I feel it makes both declarations less banal.

From a technical view, tiny Verdana is an extremely easy to manipulate screen font. The period (and the component dot of other punctuation) is 1x2 pixels @ 16 point size. In this case, I typed a double space after it, leaving an approximately N-width ’hole’. Then, I manually added a tilde just above the baseline, within the 2 pixel height of the period, and left 2 pixels between the stroke and the dot; that’s an attempt to make it look less like an ellipsis. Here’s the same example, starting with a very anti-aliased 64pt string:

In this case, a tilde was compressed to 40% vertial and 70% horizontal, then thickened and placed to mimic the above sample. However, at this scale, a little more polish should go into the design.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

A deflated exclamation mark lying in a gutter.

Tim

since we are on the tangent of inflating and deflating marks…

I would imagine that we all could imagine a variety of ’stage direction’ punctuation marks for the indiscerning reader, but implicit in their absence is that there are subtleties of language that empower it far more than the marks could.

If you have to explain a joke, the joke failed. Explaining that a hurtful comment was intended as humor only increases the hurt, not the humor. Advising the reader that you are be ’being ironic’ is rather like removing the petals of the rose to reveal the source of its beauty.

geo.

Advising the reader that you are be ‘being ironic’ is rather like removing the petals of the rose to reveal the source of its beauty.

A dramatic, yet beautiful metaphor. However, this is about writing, not language. I wonder if Closed Captionists, mobile text messagers, poets concrete and all others subscribe to such an ideal.

Similarly, alarm or a desire for a response could be invoked through text and subtext, yet marks for each are somewhat popular.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

of course, M. Cunningham, you are right about the message versus the medium (though that was sidestepped sometime back), but as m. mcL suggested, the two cannot be separated, any more than cause and effect (form/content, space/time) can.

re: the mark itself, it is rather charming actually (as opposed to the interrobang, which i think ugly as hell), but in use, at best superfluous and at worst, a disservice to the reader.

But, i suppose i have already sufficiently belabored that point.

geo.

i’m sorry I asked.

And irony is not a synonym for sarcasm by the way. One could suppose that’s the real irony here.

I think this is a great idea. I love when a common way of thinking is challenged.

While I like the idea of this, I think there’s one problem with it. In body copy, it’s just plain ugly. This mark disturbs the flow of reading with a jarring break in a paragraph. Maybe the mark could go under the last word of the sentence, or above it?

Mr. Lozos and Ms. Wardle bring up good points about internet communication and using emoticons to describe sarcasm or irony. I find the :) or the :/ to be less jarring when typing a message. Internet emoticons have yet to find their way in “printed” written communication, however.

Should we then be talking about emoticons as being adopted into written language? Just a thought...

Let’s hope that we’ll still be capitalizing words and spelling them completely out. When was the last time anyone saw the word “doughnut” and not “donut” or “drive-through” for example?

n ur nt jus kidn :-)

ChrisL

Biddy: In body copy, it’s just plain ugly. This mark disturbs the flow of reading with a jarring break in a paragraph.
Is this because it is simply unusual? Is jarring caused by the ugly or vice versa? Any suggestions on design to suit body text? I dunno if emoticons can be made to look good in type. I find them irksome, though unavoidably effective, in even screen-based messages (perhaps because there are so many variants that I have to decode the ideographic qualities of each).

Nigella: ... One could suppose that’s the real irony here.
Wiki sez: “Irony is a literary or rhetorical device in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says, and what is understood.” I believe that “incogruity” encompasses the entirety of sarcasm, which lives alongside many other types of paradoxical absurdist, and metastatic writing. And nothing in Alanis’s song. (Someone had to mention it, but why me?)

——

The Awesome & Convenient Power of Anecdotal Evidence (this is not science, I know)

I mentioned the irony mark and discussion to someone typing away on a sidekick today. They were a generation older than what I might have assumed the average text messager’s age , but they say they use it constantly with their spouse. During the several-second conversation, their eyes lit up, and they said it made total sense. So, I sum up the survey of 1 whole person as:

1. they said they thought they would use the idea.
2. it was nice that the tilde be for something finally.
3. the best part was that it was simple to use and easy to explain.

I couldn’t have hoped for a better reaction.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

Design activists should spend their time on great causes like the irony mark!~

Alanis, nay the entire world, would really benefit from the irony mark.~

LOL

Sarcasm is a crueller form of irony, intended to mock, wheras irony may be self-deprecating. As Geo. says indicating sarcasm merely increases the intended hurt. To avoid the jarring criticism perhaps you should look at a more vertical solution, most horizontal marks en, em dashes and ellipsis are pause marks.
Tim

“To avoid the jarring criticism perhaps you should look at a more vertical solution,”

Would that not be the height of ignorance?~

ChrisL

If we could get an agreed upon look for this mark, I’d put it in a character set in a heartbeat.

Choz: I mentioned above another way of doing it...but let me elaborate. What if the tilde was below the baseline and curved upward to meet the period on the baseline? Or vice-versa, above cap or ascender height and curving downward. Just a quick idea, don’t have time to do a mock-up to see whether that would work. Or, “D” but like a backwards “G” with a dot (A capital “D” with dotted “i” inside).

“In this age where communication has been dumbed down to chatting we depend so much on emoticons that I think we’ve lost some of our ability to use words.”

IMHO, emoticons *are* punctuation. And have filled this need just fine in the medium that is the chat-based web.

So all we have to do is convince the grammar teachers to start teaching a new rule. Should be no problem. That is an extremely flexible group < insert sarcasm mark here>

Don, Watchout for the blue-haired lady in tweed! One of those grammar teachers’ rulers is headed your way :-)

ChrisL

Better the ruler than Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.... :-)

(Note: emoticon-captioned for the humour-impaired.)

Geez Linda, was that sarcasm? I couldn’t tell ’cause you used a smiley-face instead of a tilde-thingy-with-a-dot.

I’ll work on some mock-ups of what you described, and a few other ideas. I’d really like to keep a relationship to the tilde in there somehow, as I see that as the distinct advantage over earlier proposed solutions, offering backwards compatability and ease of use.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

I plan to revise the Irony Mark guide on my site to reflect refinements based on this discussion, as well as update the fonts that already include it. At the very least, I will be shorting the recommended length, and improving white space. Anybody here who contributes will be credited, and I would be happy to begin a linked list of what fonts feature it.

—

Verdana unsmoothed 12 pt, TNR unsmoothed 14 pt.
1. Almost original proposal. Tilde scaled 85%w, dropped 2pts.
2. Colon-like. Tilde scaled 80%, left alignment with period
3. Dropper. To right of period, scaled 75% (both axes), then rotated right 90° and aligned with period top.
4. Floater. Full size period, moved into descender and aligned to period right.
5. Dropped G. Flipped with redraing to incorporate period.

I am pretty sure I didn’t do quite what Biddy was describing in most of these. I suspect that 6 is the most innacurate draft, but anything else I tried looked far too ’heavy’ to not impede word flow.

I like 2. I also like 4, but that might conflict with descending letters. What do the other designers here think?

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

Does it appease those confused about the place of sarcasm and hyperbole in the realm of irony if we refer to this as the ’verbal irony mark’? Then they can google it more readily before debating. My personal preference is that we not codify the use so sternly (or use such a long name), but just table the debate. Let’s assume text and type relates to the verbose arts first.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

This reminds me of the good ol’ 1990s when people used to say “NOT!” after every sentence.

I really love the irony mark. NOT!

- Lex

I agree with Terry, I think the tilda slows you down when you are reading. But I am not sure that’s a bad effect if it’s irony your after. Also, If I like it or not matters about as much as if I like or dislike emoticons. That is not at all. If it used enough then maybe it will merit it’s own glyph. But like emoticons it is most likely to rise on the power of existing glyphs like the tilda. In which case no new glyph will be needed.

Choz, I also like 2 and 4. Now that I see it, 4 might be difficult to execute depending on how long the descenders are in a typeface. Stylistically, this could be a beautiful mark in a really nice serif face.

OK, M. Cunnngham, I will admit, you have me intrigued.

so... a few hours taken away from the work I am supposed to be
getting ready for critique here to play with your idea. I tried to post a sample (jpg) in this place, but.... they do not show. Dunno how to post images in here.

see :

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/3110/snarkvx7.jpg

There is a definite ’smirking’ quality to the tilde that makes it work.

A first difficulty is the horizontal orientation... takes up rather a lot of space for punctuation. Tilt it a tad? And perhaps join the two pieces by shortening the line and moving the dot into the newly avaiilable space? You will not that i inverted the original glyph (taken from Verdana), to keep it from being confused with the tilde.

see: http://img123.imageshack.us/my.php?image=demoxf1.jpg

As for the name, I would agree that you want something more succinct. May i suggest “Snark”, as in “snide/sardonic (re)mark”)? It has linguistic precedence in British slang Snarky, which seems to parallel the most common usage.

it would appear that your idea is growing legs

Aside from unofficial concensus, what ways might be a good way to settle amongst the designs here?

Eben: Whether you, or I, “like it” matters, for the mark is still at a formative stage. In essence, I am promoting the use the existing tilde for some purpose at all, aside from programming or mathematics, since we are stuck with it in the basic ASCII glyphs forever, and immense hardware and software support. To strengthen it’s use, I propose adding the irony mark to typefaces, essentially as a nicer adaptation, where one wants it to look prettier or more flowing. Meanwhile, others are independently developing and applying a similar mark. That’s why I brought it up here, amongst those most likely to care about that component and able to do something about it, before something dorkier is adopted.

From a digital type vocabulary view, I think I am suggesting support for a unique character that is a ligature of two existing glyphs. I think that the tilde alone(no period) looks awful!) Anyone familiar with Unicode’s design philosophy is welcome to correct my description.

biddy: No. 4 might make a nice fancy alternate, or one of several with the descended tilde in different places? That might be a bit much for now. At the moment, I am leaning towards something along the lines of No. 2, as it seems like (for now) the healthiest compromise of:

tilde-ness,
pleasant flow in body copy
standalone* or end-of-line use
clarity or legibility from other marks
adequate visual connotation

Are there other factors we should consider?

*I can totally see this mark useful on it’s own as a, “Tell me that you are kidding!”, “No way-you aren’t serious!?”, or as an anti-exclamation vibe, in a balloon over a cartoon character’s head.
(P. 1: Jon says something sappy. P. 2: Garfield thinks, “.~”)

Ben (George?)
There’s an “insert image” graphic text below the comment input box, that lets you pick a file from your local computer, then stores it on the Typo...com server and puts a bracketed link to it at the end of whatever you’ve typed in the comment box. This can then be moved to wherever you want it to appear. The links you put work just fine as well, though.

The proposals you put up look pretty good. It is unambigously not an ellipsis, question mark or other sentence terminator, and the final curl may lead into the next line well. Do you imagine this looking different in seriffed fonts? We should probably examine it in body text, so I think i will doodle a bit on that late tonight. Because the tilde does nothing else that a normal English speaker might come across, I don’t suppose having the look of the two overlapping is a bad thing. Plus, the designs ideas of the existing tilde can be drawn upon.

“Snark” has been suggested as a ’typographer jargon’-nickname previously by a commenter on Greenman’s article suggesting borrowing the inverted exclamation point from Ethiopian script. I think this might be a great primary name, or an endearing pet name. I’m also partial to “Zing”. To compare, the forward slash is also known as a solidus, slant, stoke, scratch or any of a handful of other names.

Geo Ben: it would appear that your idea is growing legs

This is hardly my idea. I drew this most heavily from the proposal by the blogging couple @ liloia.com. I was just motivated to try and pre-empt the masses from any use of a preceeding mark, as that variation galls me so much that it puts me in the camp of the most cynical responses in this thread. Then, I thought, lets all make this look a little better, by involving the both-sides-of-the-brain type gurus here.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

Chozz,

yes, George (or Geo or Ben.... they are all used in various fora)

it is a Flash button... thanks. I normally have flashed turned off because i find the flashing ads annoying.

Well, it is your idea here. And i actualy do not think that the variations i played with help you in the end, as one of your proposals was that the design allow for it’s use in instances where the reader (as in an online media like this) lacks the specific character. The two char solution would be the only resort in those cases.

Pity... i thought Snark was a pretty clever solution, its implicit irony when ya think of Caroll and his works.

oh well.

geo.

I appreciate brevity more than the readers of this thread might imagine. You are right: Carroll’s writing is too fitting to not pay an homage to with the double entendre. With whatever officialness I am granted, let’s now refer to it as a ’snark’. When people ask us what on earth we are talking about, we can look at them as if they are hopelessly out of touch and reply, “Duh! An irony mark.”

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

Yes! Snobbishness!

Anyways, wow that I see that the dot and tilde can be integrated well, I like the last example. But your 1st glyph also deserve a honor. Have you tried to actually drawing it with a broad nibbed pen, Mr. Cunningham?

Should I ever again molest an innocent page with a broadnib pen, it would be a torture to the ink, a humilation to the pen, and completely denied by me on any public occasion. All my lettters are drawn directly into a computer, or inked/painted/drawn with a variety of nontraditional media and scanned.

I have been surfing the net for articles about irony marks, and seeding the idea of the snark. In the proccess, I revisted Kevn Larson’s always interesting blog, and he seems aware and supportive of this implementation of an irony mark, since it will offers easy implementation. I have commented on the wikipedia pages for the sarcasm mark (discussion and article) and irony mark (discussion only).

Are there artists, designers or foundries that would like to be included in the list of supporters of the ligature? I have a spot for you on the incomplete Snark user’s guide.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

Any variations particularly reach out and grab ya?

I’m most partial to 2B:
75% width tilde with dot centered under the left arc, tilde at the x-center. Stylish alignment, and legible, but not too wide. Overall: practical.

I notice the dot is a little closer to the left bearing than it should be in some of these. Sorry.

I still remain skeptical but part of the reason for that is I have not had time to really chew on this question & I will not have it for some time. I Do hope you are successful if only because I like the idea of extended expressive possibilities. But really despite all I have read so far I am unconvinced. A tilda might easily be pressed into use here. That might really be enough. But for the sake of looks I think the main thing to avoid is making the mark look too much like an exclaimation or Question mark on it’s side. When I look at your icon I keep thinking question mark & it doesn’t work for me. A tilda is even and suggests abiguity that needs resolution. In other words it says “Hang on - Reconsider this phrase.” Perhaps there should be three kinds of marks short ones for nasty snide snarkyness. Medium ones for run of the mill irony. And long ones for really dry wit. It’s a slipperly slope.

I am not liking it sitting with the period in your example. I wonder if it should stay in it’s own area to the right of the period or if it is ’real’ puctuation if it aught to stand on it’s own. No period needed.

well, I don’t use emoticons (or many abbreviations either) because I just like words and structure and all that good stuff.

But, as I said, the idea intrigues me.

I think B is best too, though I would still advocate tilting the tilde and moving it closer to the period so as to distinguish it.

The final word on width lies in the hands of the font designers, but I can imagine the variable widths easily following your suggestion, with the witty, pithy and most tongue-in-cheek typefaces employing a longer variant. (Also, those are less likely to be used in long copy.) It is a slippery slope, indeed. I’ll let time do it’s magic, once this is off the ground.

The dot under the stroke is to give a ’completeness of thought’ look to sentences terminated with a snark, as well as too make it appear ’official’ alongside other sentence termination marks. The QM and the ExM both are modified periods, so it seems suitable that this is as well. The tilde’s wavy symmetry is of value for exactly why you describe. There’s a reason why I don’t suggest any of the other unused accents on a US keyboard.

You bring interesting thoughts to this, I will be pondering what you say most of the day.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

What do others think about the dot?

Choz, as you have the dot in your current avatar image, I like it!

(posted here just in case you change it later)

It’s almost iconic; an all-seeing eye, taking a second look at the words preceeding it.

Thank you. I didn’t see the image until I saved it small. Then I noticed it looked like a suspiciously-raised eyebrow, and thought, “Oh, that’s too rich.”

(That’s Book Antiqua, tilde scaled 75%, darkened and moved.)

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The Snark

I like it. I’m curious to see how it sets up in copy.

yep. good. I think you may have it. I, too, would like to see in in copy.

And it looks like a winking eye as well.

ChrisL

Let’s see it set.

I actually kind of like this now. It sort of reminds me of a fermata in music.

- Lex

Snark

Book Antiqua, 30 point, optical spacing, hyphenated and flushed. The snark is a 30 point period, with a bold 23.pt tilde. A 15 point space was added, to imitate proper spacing. One thing to keep in mind is that the snark is less necessary in the center of body text. The context usually will nornmally make any verbal irony clear. I think it will be most useful in very short strings. For illustrative purposes, however, I’ve attemped to justify the use by creating verbal irony that may be ambigous without it.

And yeah, I forgot to properly capitalize “Man Who Shot”. My bad.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The

This mark does indeed influence me to read the preceding sentence twice, It conveys greater importance than if the sentence were ended with a mere period, yet it isn’t shouting as an exclamation point would.

The tilde looks a little thin, though. It doesn’t carry the same visual weight as the question mark, and thus still looks like more of an assemblage than a character in its own right.

I agree, it is too light. I’m happy with the spacing otherwise. I was attempting to work strictly with font outlines in this and even using faux-bolding didn’t make it the right weight. Working with tinier sizes makes it rough. Is there anybody out there with a flair for tweaking traditional serifed faces?

I am going to work on incorporation into my own display fonts next.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The Snark

Wow, looks a lot more elegant than I thought it would. I can see this becoming a fun, ornate type extra.

Bookman Antigua - 24pt

Well, after wandering around my room, staring @ the screen from various points, I’d have to say that the center example looks best to me, matching the weight of the text very well.

I’m sold on this design. I will begin writing the descriptive guide shortly. I’m planning on modelling it after MS’s type guide entries, unless someone has a better formula to suggest. (Of course, in type, we’ll all do our own thing anyhow, but where’s the fun if there are no rules to break?)

If anyone has added this to their own typeface(s) already, post it here or drop me an email with credits and a nice big image to incorporate into the guide.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
Snark .~

Proposed copy for design recommendation (please comment!):
—-

Snark
A mark used to terminate a statement or passage of verbal irony.

• Unicode: Private Use Area U+58066 (Hexadecimal $E2D2)

Design: The snark is a ligature of the period and tilde. The dot is centered under the lefthand arc of a condensed swung stroke. The forms of the ligature components closely mimic the original glyphs of the font. If the bottom dot of the question mark and exclamation mark are different from the period, the snark’s bottom dot should match them. The tilde is shortened to 70-90% of its original width. Care should be taken to insure that the tilde’s weight remains appropriate to the typeface, and the question mark’s weight is a good measure.

Usage Note: Similarly to a question mark, exclamation mark or period, the snark is placed immediately after the last letter of a sentence, and followed by a single space.

Height alignment: The bottom dot aligns with the lowercase overshoot in round designs and the baseline in square designs. The top of the upper stroke may align with the center bar of the lowercase letters, the x-height, or anywhere in between. There should be space equal to the diameter of the dot between the dot, and the bottom of the top stroke.

Advance width rule: The snark should fit between the width of the question mark and an N-space.

Other Notes: The snark is inspired by the unofficial French point d’ironie, a reversed question mark proposed in the 19th century. This variant may be possibly preferred for historical typefaces, or as an alternate design.

Despite the similarity between the French design and the Arabic question mark (U+1567), a designer should not substitute one for another, as this may cause rendering problems in some applications.

Should the snark become popular in languages that employ the inverted question mark and exclamation mark, designers may want to include an inverted version, following the conventions of the established marks. The dot should align with the question and exclamation mark’s (now) top dots. Suggested unofficial mapping would be U+58067 (Hex: $E2D3)

—-
Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The Snark

OpenType (OT) Implementation
The introduction of OpenType fonts allows for interesting advanced typographic substitutions to be made while the user is typing, along with many other font refinements. In this case, it can be used to place the snark in easy reach of common users, by “seeing” when they type (period)+(tilde). Adoption of OT is expected to continue to grow.

The ligature substitution will work, whether the glyph is mapped to any Unicode space, or even named, as long as the character is included in the font file. IT is called up in any OpenType (OT) font through the use of the Contextual Ligature feature. This class is currently supported by virtually all design-oriented OT-aware programs. Unlike other ligature substitutions, the class is specified to default to “on”, meaning the substitution will happen automatically, as the user types. (This can be turned off.)

Because the feature is watching an atypical character combination, the command is fairly simple to include. Using VOLT (the Visual OpenType Layout Tool), the substitution mapping is as follows:

Script, Language, Feature
Latin <latn>, Default<dflt>, Contextual Ligatures <clig>

A substitution is then added:

glyph#1 glyph#2 - > glyph#3

“#1” is the number or name of the standard period or full stop.
“#2” is the number or name of the ascii tilde.
“#3” is the number or name of the snark.

Finally, the substitution is dragged to the feature, tested and shipped. Now, the substitution should be automatic in Adobe’s OpenType-friendly applications and more.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The Snark

Based on the feedback, I will use the text more-or-less like it stands.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The Snark

I’m afraid I’m not convinced of the merits of this mark.

In the first place, semantically, it’s confusing, rather than helpful. The reason is that while the two standard “prosodic” marks used in English — the question and the exclamation point — indicate a stress both in voice and meaning, the snark does not. It suggests a sneering tone of voice, which is rarely appropriate to irony. In other words, irony requires understatement, eg “They teach you to be a gentleman there”. Even sarcasm benefits from understatement. It is up to the reader to determine the degree of sneer in the character’s voice, or up to the writer to better express ironic intent.

To further illustrate this point, why not have a “humorous” mark, to indicate that the author is making a joke? Or an “angry” mark to indicate that the author is pissed off? Or a “sincerity” mark, to indicate that the author really, really means what they’re saying — that would be the opposite of an irony mark, ennit, and surely just as appropriate. I mean, the project seems quite arbitrary if you are attempting to nuance the meaning of text.

That is why the question mark and the exclamation mark make sense, because they are truly prosodic. The interrobang, too, is prosodic. But the snark is not, except for the special case of sneering sarcasm. A more useful prosodic grammar mark would be “fear”, indicating a pathetic whine as in “please don’t hurt me”.

In the second place, as a typographic design the tilde+period snark is unsuccessful. It is apologetic and lacks distinction, looking like a wobbly emdash and a fly-turd. That is the interpretation it must elicit, appearing at the end of sentences. By trying to re-use the ascii tilde, the design is compromised. The s-curve idea would be better if applied with purpose, as something with the size and angle of the slash, perhaps. In fact, the original thingy at the top of this thread showed more promise.

But really, the snark is, grammatically, confusing clutter, no matter how well designed.

M. Shinn,

There is much truth in what you say. but.... the matter of what constitues irony has long since been swept from the table, notwithstanding out insistence to the contrary. When you consider that the recognized master of IRONY is Seinfeld (“not that there’s anything wrong with that”), we have to accept that we are stuck with sarcasm as irony (As M. Shaw suggests).

To be honest, I do not believe that I would ever use the snark, but i suspect that many people would find it useful. Real irony being a rather difficult trick to pull off, it would certainly help to have some sorta signpost indicating that one tried.

But mostly, i was intrigued by the design aspect. We may have little use for fadas and umlauts either, but ...

And I am learning about glyph design in the process.

geo.

I am going to have to revise what I said before about needing 3 marks. Actually you need five for the 5 levels of irony.

0 utter earnestness ( no irony )
e.g., Q: “What do you think of the squash soup?”
A: “I don’t like it.”

1 crude sarcasm
e.g., Q: “What do you think of the squash soup?”
A: “Mmmmm ... I loooooove squash soup!!”

2 refined wittiness
e.g., Q: “What do you think of the squash soup?”
A: “Oh goodie ... squash soup!”

3 subtle misdirection
e.g., Q: “What do you think of the squash soup?”
A: “What sort of soup is this again?”

4 dead-pan mockery
e.g., Q: “What do you think of the squash soup?”
A: “Sometimes squash soup can be quite tasty.”

5 utterly earnest acceptance of the world in all its absurdity ( the highest form )
e.g., Q: “What do you think of the squash soup?”
A: “I don’t like it.”

This level theory of irony was proposal by Art Walaszek sometime around 2000.

Without indicating which of these you mean you run the risk of making all snarked sentances into level one. Level one irony is next to worthless. Level 5 is one of the highest compliments you can offer.

Nick, you bring a lot of valid and very interesting points up. I am quite fascinated by what you have seriously considered and insightfully explained. My reply is not brief, but I hope it is coherent and interesting to you and others.

I don’t think the the snark is perfect. Nor do I believe I nor any other ’author’ of a glyph can have it perfect in advance. Unlike Claudius or Peter, I cannot simply decree its implementation either, so, while it must be somewhat adequate at ’birth’, it must be seeded into the wild, and any success will come paired with an evolutionary change in form or function, through a gradual social process. I anticipate alterations to meaning, use and design. It may become very good at some point.

A question is as often tonal as it is stressed, with a rising pitch. Either way, I find that both the common P-shaped and the more ornate curvy-z style both imply a pause born of idleness, which is presumably the wait for a response from the listener (or reader, in their head), and is pretty much perfect. Like the period, I would say it does its job very respectably.

The ’!’, on the otherhand, I think is rather weak, from a voice-minded view. I tend, when lacking enough, see as an across-the-sentence increase in volume, hardly prosodic. If there is enough narrative flow, I may create a more appropriate sound in my head, but that’s hardly the mark’s doing, and still not prosodic. That’s more being used to it than anything, like other reading preferences. I think that if normal writing included double and triple exclamations, a lot more vocal clarity could exist. Also, from an abstract visual design point, I imagine that a dot and asterisk or hash/pound (#) would be more effective at creating the ’Blammo!” tone.

The slightly controversial ampersand and the downright pointless interrobang are closer examples of questionable ligatures. They offer no great quality over ‘and’ and “!?” They are alternates with advantages that match their drawbacks. At least the “.~” creates new meaning. Unfortunately, the target users will be limited to just that for a time, while the rather literate, and typographers who need this the least (due to historical interest, high literacy, care for sentence construction, value of tradition etc.) will see it as extraneous, until it is unavoidably required in fonts. I just hope there are enough progressive designers to meet the texters in the middle. And if type designers weren’t generally conservative, why would fx ligs still exist in non-decorative faces?

As far as the snark, I think you are saying it does actually sing a song, just not the right song?

At this point, the snark is a mark of verbal irony, including but not limited simply to sarcasm. I think you are saying that it isn’t appropriate because it visually implies only a sneer, which universally means sarcasm. I wouldn’t say so, though wife, however, wishes I felt otherwise, as she takes my most resigned sarcasms as complicity. I am more likely to sneer when using hyperbole or absurd understatement than sarcasm, which would mean the prosodic qualities still will suit the inferred acoustics you describe.

Also, any verbal irony requires a modulation of speech for effectiveness seems the kind most appropriate to mark in text. To complicate the debate, others seem to adopt different connotations to quite different examples. Previous posters have stated that it reminds them of a wide range, from outright levity to in-joking, ambiguity to scorn. This suggests that they are getting a different image or sound. Since they still find ways to attach it to their models of verbal irony, it is still working, in a way.

The :) is a humorous mark, and there is already a smiley-face character in ASCII and all its derivatives for it. It is too cute and specific to cover many, many types of humor, coming off as smarmy. The angry mark, I think, is fulfilled by the use of expletives in so many pretty ways. Particularly as participles and interjections, they fulfill this niche well. On the sincerity mark, it would immediately become co-opted as a sarcasm mark, if I can presume the behavior of people. Aside from that, all I can say is that perhaps there should be some more sentence terminals. I haven’t the resources to tabulate all of what we say and mean, and the conditions where we do it. That would codify what’s most ambiguous. Until then, I’d say this is a bit arbitrary, but I can cope with that. I consistently see a problem with people using verbal irony in places where it cannot be clear, but they weren’t intending ambiguity. So, to me, broken is a good place to fix things. I think this is supported by people trying to use quotes, percent pairs, already-loaded inverted exclamations or questions, technically problematic arabic glyphs, tilde pairs, parenthesized exclamations and/or questions, faux-markup tags, real markup tags, abbreviations, narrative sequences and even hand-drawn solutions to easily convey irony.

There is some controversy about the terms “Irony” and “Sarcasm”, and what is which. The definitions of both may be changing. This mark cannot resolve that debate, and shouldn’t suffer for it, but unfortunately does.

Despite the arbitrary method you assign fear to being worthy of characterization, over, say, sincerity, that sounds like one hell of an idea! I’ve been annoyed by the portrayals of fear in written work, from text-like to design-like ends. I would love to see what you come up with, and might just give that a go sometime. And no, I am serious, it is a very weak point of text.

I am inclined to take any description of a baseline dot, considering its successful use in so many other punctuations, as a fly-turd as simply hyperbolic. Likewise, the other individual component, the swung dash, is not ugly either, though that is subjective, of course. We’ve been moving towards N sized, not M sized, in body-oriented typefaces. I am more than eager to see any revisions you suggest, and very democratic in my consideration. I am sorry if it appears apologetic.~ My goal is to see something beautiful, consistent and practical replace the motley array of marks beginning to be adopted.

I don’t see the snark as confusing clutter, but as a specialty product, like the pilcrow, section or Circled R. To be used only when it it appropriate, which is not all irony in all places.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The Snark

Level one irony is next to worthless. Level 5 is one of the highest compliments you can offer.

Great thought there. Must contemplate/ research it.

Were I even to dare to suggest that more than one is a good idea, I think that the period is the appropriate mark for both #1 and #5, so you were close with decribing the 3 between. Now, can one mark be useful to describe these? It is much more likely to find cultural embrace, I suspect. But you have a valid point. People think sarcasm only.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The Snark

http://www.nms.ac.uk/ournewlook_1.aspx

New logo forming a saltire from exclamation and question marks.

The snark was a boojum, you see

Tim

boojum?

Last line of the poem, check out the illustrations if you have a chance.
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/carroll/lewis/snark/fit8.html

A Boojum is the dangerous kind of Snark.

Tim

Choz, thanks for the reply.
Reading it, and Eben’s five levels, you mention multiplying the exclamation point for increasing volume of exclamation, so perhaps the tilde can be multiplied for varying degrees of irony?!

The fly turd comment was quite sincere, for which a sincerity mark would have helped, to denote the absence of sarcasm?!:-)
What I mean is that it is too easy to mistake the tilde for a dash, given the frequency of dashes at the end of sentences, and if that is the case, then the period would be assumed to be an artefact in the paper, the printing, or the said fly dropping. Or possibly a booger courtesy of a previous reader.

Good point about the happyface emoticon — it has emerged as a genuine mark, and I will in future font designs consider kerning these characters.~ There, you see, the snark doesn’t need a separate code point, because it is quite happy as a composite, like the happyface emoticon.

On a tangent, in setting the scotch roman mid-19th century, compositors used a triple space between sentences. I’ve recently been reading a new book set in Bembo with kerning between the space and cap A, V, T, W, and Y, and it’s very annoying. Really, I don’t see that there’s anything fundamentally wrong with a double space between sentences. Typographers today have a notion of spaces that is generally quite rigid and simplistic, compared to how those in the past used a variety of spaces. So a double space after the snark (which is how I set it above) is an option. There is also the custom in many languages (eg French) to insert spacing before the end mark — actually an English language practice that has died out. It has especial merit where the mark is x-height (ie the colons) and follwing an x-height character. The composite snark may have that kind of a problem, and shouldn’t be too close to the word — another reason to prefer the “arbitrary” snark.

What was the tipping point that established the happyface emoticon? Hindsight may be able to say, but it’s always complex and you can’t guarantee results, so all one person can do is push. In the 16th century Trissino advocated the addition of j, u and long o (omega) to the roman alphabet, and much later in the next century two out of three of his reforms had become established. So keep at it (because you never know where things will lead) and I hope the criticism is useful.

The composite snark may have that kind of a problem, and shouldn’t be too close to the word.

Excellent point.

I like the idea of the multiplicative snark.

This is an Example. ~~~~~

M. Cunningham makes a very good point in the snarks appropriateness in relieving us of the variety of marks used to select text from context (presumably)to indicate irony. it occurs to me, however, that such usages are usually inline rather than terminal. How would the snark be used in such instances?

eg: the store advertised a ’free gift’ with purchase. (any usage that can be described as both tautological and oxymoronic MUST be ironic, intent notwithstanding).

geo.

The example you give can be read alot of ways. If you want it read a specific way you could do this instead:

The store advertised a ’free gift~’ with purchase

or this:
The store advertised a ’free gift’ with purchase.~

or this:
The store advertised a ’free gift’ with purchase.~~~~~

You might not want to of course. But you could.

Found this in an old remnant of a specimen book, conveniently missing the cover and title pages. It looks like we are a season late and a shilling short.

 
I think the multi-exclamation and multi-snark are neat ideas, but I don’t think semi-formal use is about to change on the exclamation, and it would seem to inconsistent to encourage it on the other. This would suggest that there is still a place for either in casual use. Poetry and comics are some of the limited applications where a need for typographic quality would overlap the highly vocalized stylings that might use it.

I hypothesise that the fly-turd effect is simply from a shortage of well kerned examples of the snark, added to its unfamiliary. I imagine it living side-by-side with the “franken-“snark: “.~” for quite some time. By the time support is common enough, it will be familiar. As for the kerning; hey, it’s at version .3 beta right now!

I really would suggest that people play with the bearings and arrangement when adding the mark. Particularly in its infancy, it needs to be a beautiful and readable improvement ofver “.~”, or who would care?

Re-reading my last post, I was a bit harsh in lamenting the use of quotes. They are very good for ironic intra-sentence use. They are also well established, even referred to back in vocal irony. Unfortunately, they are used at the full sentence level in some places online. Ugh. The rest of the mix is also used at the full sentence level, a lot of them at the beginning (as part of a pair) as well as at the end.

Perhaps there need not be a separate code spot altogether for the snark. I think it looks “just okay” in a few fonts, where the tilde sits around the x-height. In ones where it sits at the M-height, or higher, it looks bad (for making a snark). Others may disagree, but the look of “.~” in several common screen fonts bugs me. Typophile’s default font does a better job than most.

The illustration above shows that there is a lot of range in what the snark could become in different fonts, and those were just ideas from one noggin. I plan to have a contest soon to promote the idea, tageting traditional illustrative artists. And this may spawn even more variations within the basic idea, inspiring us.

I wonder how Trissino would have promoted his ideas today. Aside from open design discussion here, and practicing it in my own fonts, naturally, I am considering an emailing campaign (real mail, not spam, to relevant outlets), contests, clothing and any ideas anyone offers that sound not-too-impossible. Suggestions?

Here is something just to muse:

e.g., Q: “What do you think of the squash soup???”

A: “Squash soup!!! I don’t like it.~.~.~”

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The Snark

it’s -> its
it’s -> its
It’s -> Its
interrogobang -> interrobang
interrogobang -> interrobang
it’s -> its
characature -> caricature
it’s -> its
it’s -> its
tounge -> tongue
it’s -> its
uvula: vulgar, vacuum, ultraviole[n]t

illiterate shithead

it’s -> its
it’s -> its

criteria..is -> criteria..are

it’s -> its
it’s -> Its
it’s -> its

Ye’re all a bunch of illiterate retards. That dumb Franc didn’t understand that extant punctuation can mock up any needful expression much better than his seizures. Fear, for one, has ? or ?¿? pitch, ¡ strength, and sl-o-w-th. I’ll leave a note on Wikipedia. BTW, that (?) and (!) for irony in captioning rocks, but one does need one character. If you want irony, use a hollow stop to show that the statement is also hollow in meaning. The reader will look for a footnote that isn’t there:

That was great*
That was great°
That was great,  Yes.

Anyway, a tilde (~) is wavy. It’s better suitted to a singsongy blurt, not to awkwardness. Listen to your own thohts or shut up.

-Aut

No,I don’t think you will be leaving any note on Wikipedia.

Welcome to Typophile.~

just came across this, wasn’t sure if someone mentioned it already:
http://www.underware.nl/site2/index.php3?id1=underware&id2=custom-type&i...

Very interesting. I am sorry to say that I do not find the design as effective as our own, but it is interesting to learn of the commission and promotion.

The full page ad makes me think it is time to fire my PR man.

.~

lysdexia’s in love with words, and apparently pays for it!

This thing with underware indicates, at least to me, that introducing new marks for irony or whatever is a good gimmick that gets some publicity. I guess until the people of letters (not letterforms) really see the need for a new mark we’ll just end up with a few useless designs.

Emoticons were, I think, a bottom up phenomenon that gave us some very exciting and often very funny combinations of quotation marks to represent an array of feelings, situations, states of mind in informal communication. Where are they now? They were reinvented as a series of readymade, and disturbingly unpleasant, cartoons.

You’ve probably gathered by now I’m not very keen on the idea of pushing for its use, or including it in fonts. I’m all for the fun of designing and discussing it as if it were something serious!

This is the equivalent of making a bad joke and then explaining it, I’m afraid. If one needs to explain irony/sarcasm, then it wasn’t very effective irony/sarcasm to begin with. That’s the beauty of a well-placed bit of implied meaning. You need to to “get it.”

If I say that something is ambiguous am I being ambiguous?

If I mark something as ’ironic’ does that indeed make it ironic?

If my intention was irony then the reader may or may not get the intention of irony. If you remove the intentionality operator (the irony mark) doesn’t that leave it for the reader to decide?

Why do you want the irony to be s.p.e.l.l.e.d o.u.t?
Doesn’t it imply you know what ’irony’ is? “oh, right, he means the exact opposite of what he said”
Or am I being ironic?

If you describe somethings as ’something’ I don’t think you need to then mark it as ambigous.

Yes, either because it was, or because you used the mark incorrectly.

Now to be completely candid and not ironic in the least. My original, personal motivation to popularize the snark is to, first, preempt the popularization of other alternatives that also (less tastefully) mark the beginning of a sentence or section, and two, see that it looks pleasant, yet practical. As to the details of proper usage, that is all speculated upon previously in this thread. In the end, it is whatever people think it is the most. The lives of the semicolon, the exclamation and even the full stop are not static. The snark is crawling. I hope to be around when it takes its first staggering, bouncy steps.

Oh my gosh, yes, I saw the mark on Underware’s e-newsletter the other day and immediately reminded of this topic! Frankly, I was surprised that the features of both Underware’s and Choz’s marks are quite similar, notably the “snark” shape.

I think a “vertical” solution is most effective. I think whichever sets up best in copy is probably the best solution.

Lurking in the standard PC encoding is a character that nobody ever uses for anything: the “logical not”. I think it could be put to use as an indicator for flat sarcasm that need be unambiguously sarcastic. “That sounds logical.¬” literally means “That sounds logical... not.”

> This is the equivalent of making a bad joke and then explaining it, I’m afraid. If one needs to explain irony/sarcasm, then it wasn’t very effective irony/sarcasm to begin with.

I completely agree. I also find question marks repulsive. Why should I attach a question mark to a properly written question.

Why should I attach a question mark to a properly written question.

Because punctuation also indicates “inflection.” Your sentence above reads monotone without a question mark.

Kevin, come now. Written language isn’t the same as spoken. It is bad grammar to leave question marks out of written questions. By that logic I can just abandon punctuation, capitalization and maybe even word spaces.

Biddy, you fell for it.

I’m sorry, did the irony not come through. I wonder if there’s some way I could have conveyed it better.

Oh I get it. Kevin, that’s too subtle. The tone you are conveying is actually a little more snarky even than simple irony. But it also would not work in sentences that did not end in questions. I’m sure you realize.

I’m sorry, did the irony not come through. I wonder if there’s some way I could have conveyed it better.

LOL. Point taken. :)

I’m going to look up how Underware encoded their version, and see how compatible things can be. Perhaps that, the snark and the French design could share a spot.

The official resource for all things snarky, aside from Joan River’s home page, is coming very soon.

The Underware solution places the irony mark in the ASCII Circumflex’s position. I don’t think that is a good long-term solution, though it certainly makes spreading it easy enough.

Previously, I had been recommending placing the snark in the Unicode private use area (at E2D2), where it was not too likely too cause problems, and accessing it through OpenType -clig-. This has two drawbacks: possible conflict with other common “add-on” uses of the PUA, and problems encoding the contextual ligation to work when you want it and not other times.

On the first issue, the snark is very similar to the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative’s “Punctus Interrogativus Horizontal Tilde” which they encode @ F1E8. I am tempted to change the recommendation, but our earlier experiments suggest that a “basic” snark’s top bar sets best at about 3/4ths the width of the ASCII tilde. Nevertheless, compatibility with MUFI standards may be good.

-clig-, it turns out, is not the greatest place to offer the .~-to-snark conversion. Even though it is a terminal mark, it is not always followed by space. Sometimes it is followed by a carriage return, and I am sure there are other exceptions. Any thoughts from the othere ’philers on that? A stylistic set perhaps, or in -dlig-? The goal is to offer a painless transition from a dot-tilde to a snark biglyph.