Punctuation

The Town That Fought Over Its Apostrophe

What happens when a local council tries to erase a single punctuation mark from a place name? In the English…

5 days ago

A History of Parentheses

We use them every day to add an aside or crack a digital smile, but have you ever wondered where…

5 days ago

Error Cascades: One Typo, System-Wide Failure

How can a single misplaced comma bring down an entire software system? This piece explores "error cascades" from a linguistic…

1 month ago

The Interrobang’s Brief, Glorious Life

What do you get when you combine a question mark and an exclamation point? In the 1960s, frustrated ad man…

4 months ago

Your Guide to Spanish Punctuation (It’s Easy!)

What's with the upside-down question marks (¿) and exclamation points (¡) in Spanish? Far from being a random quirk, these…

4 months ago

The Pilcrow’s Tale: The Paragraph’s Lost Symbol (¶)

Ever seen this symbol: ¶? Once a vibrant and essential mark in medieval manuscripts, the pilcrow guided readers through dense…

4 months ago

The Birth of a Question Mark

The question mark seems like a fundamental part of writing, but it wasn't always there. This ubiquitous symbol of curiosity…

5 months ago

The Unspoken Rules of the Slash (/)

Beyond its formal roles in dates and poetry, the forward slash has become a digital powerhouse, shaping everything from online…

5 months ago

The Little Star: A History of the Asterisk (*)

Look at your keyboard. Tucked above the number 8 is a symbol we see every day, yet rarely think about:…

5 months ago

The Scribe’s Shortcut: A History of the Tilde (~)

That familiar squiggle, the tilde (~), is more than just a decoration on the Spanish 'ñ' or a casual emoji.…

5 months ago

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