Punctation marks you never knew existed

EVER wished the question mark and exclamation mark would get together? They did! It's called the interrobang and it's one of many punctation points you never knew about.

The snark

EVER found yourself reaching for a punctuation mark that just doesn't exist, so you have to make something up?!

Sure, we're all familiar with the common crop of points, dashes and marks. But those are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to punctuation.

There's a whole range of little-known marks that have either been lost in the annals of time, or are used so infrequently they don't even warrant a spot on your keyboard.

But as we communicate with each other more and more in writing, we reckon it's about time some of these nifty guys came back.

THE INTERROBANG

The interrobang.

My favourite. It's like saying WTF and OMG at the same time.

The interrobang was apparently invented by an ad exec in the sixties, who believed advertisements would look better if surprise and query were expressed by one symbol.

Nowadays in informal communication, we tend to write ?! as two separate symbols because the interrobang never really took off as standard punctuation.

But it's time for a resurgence, right?!

ASTERISM

The asterism.

It's little wonder this guy never soared in popularity.

Although the asterism has a cool name and looks awesome, it's not very useful.

It's for indicating minor breaks in a text. It can also indicate that a text is untitled. Yawn.

Please suggest possible new uses to revive it today: How about it becomes the punctuation we use to indicate an awkward silence caused by someone texting something lame?

DAGGERS

The dagger, and the double dagger.

The undisputed bad boys of the punctuation scene.

It's a shame these guys (which are technically typographical glyphs, and not punctuation marks) don't have a more useful purpose, because they look pretty awesome.

Also called the obelisk, the dagger is used to cut out extraneous stuff from your text.

BECAUSE SIGN

The because sign.

This looks like an upside-down "therefore" sign and it means "because".

That's going to make your note-taking a bit quicker, now, isn't it?

EXCLAMATION COMMA

The exclamation comma

Just because you're excited about something, doesn't mean the sentence has to end.

We give you: the exclamation comma.

QUESTION COMMA

The question comma

Just like the exclamation comma above, but used for a mid-sentence question.

SNARK

The snark

Have you ever written a text message and wondered whether the recipient will pick up on your sarcasm?

The world totally needs a sarcasm font, we agree. But until that's invented, try the snark.

Also knows as the irony mark and the percontation point, the snark is used at the end of a sentence to indicate that the sentence should be understood at a second level.

It's been around since the late 16th century, but deserves to come of age today, in the era of Fights Started By Misinterpreted Sarcasm In Text Messages.

What punctuation would you like to bring back? Continue the conversation on Twitter @danielstrudwick | @newscomauHQ