Talk:Irony punctuation

How to produce the mark
Is there an alt code that will produce such a mark? I haven't been able to find one —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.26.127.165 (talk) 22:27, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * No Alt code that I know of. Rishida's excellent work in this area indicates that one could use &#x2E2E for HTML work; but many computers, browsers, and the like still cannot display this code. A simple substitute could be the Arabic Reverse Question Mark (&#x061F) which displays quite nicely on my Win7-based HP PC running Chrome-de-jour so, presumably, elsewhere. Further investigations could be made if one so desires: https://people.w3.org/rishida/uniview/ with Show Block set to Punctuation/Supplemental Punctuation. JimScott (talk) 15:52, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Internet forums
"In some internet forums, green text is used to signify irony.[14]"

Is this really a general rule? I've never seen it before, it seems like a creative solution used only(?) by one particular forum. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaminix (talk • contribs) 20:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Google seems to indicate it's not unheard of, but it doesn't seem to be a uniform or widespread thing, either. As it is, the cite used really isn't a good cite, since it refers back to just the particulars of a non-notable forum rather than commenting on the trend at large. The google search also turned up similar conventions such as other colors and left-slanted text, so if there isn't a better cite, I'd delete it.167.181.12.18 (talk) 17:37, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a citation for this or I'd just do it myself, but why not something along the lines of "In some internet forums, green text and/or preceding the text with a > character is used to signify irony."? Since generally, the two are linked in the minds of various communities (especially imageboards such as 4chan, where green text is produced by preceding the line with a > ) 71.212.113.209 (talk) 07:17, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Off topic chat
Contemporary Discussion

I have just started a discussion on Typophile.com, a forum for text-using graphic designers and type designers (who construct fonts), suggesting an alternate design, broader applicationn and method of painless implementation for the irony mark. I also include my reasoning for it's advocation, and for the purpose of my proposed design. In the thread, I actually propose it's use for not only for irony, but also as a sarcasm mark and to reveal false subtlety or innuendo, and any other application where the missiing verbal intonation might have clarified a commentsd contradictory meaning. I suggest calling the collective uses all the irony mark, to both keep things simple and because Irony is not only the most umbrella-like term, but can legitimately be other things besides an explicit contradiction to expected circumstances.

Feel free to drop on by and take a look there, http://typophile.com/node/28817 or at my suggessted design guide and examples at http://www.exclamachine.com/snark

--Choz 22:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Sarcastrophes

George Bush is my ^favorite^ president - shows tonal change to indicate sarcasm

^I love meetings^ - Marks the sentence as sarcastic.

UNICODE "Font"

I have been proposing a new font based on UNICODE characters so that it will work on social media. Like this: Bɛƈ ɑμʂɛ ʈɦɛ ωоɾɭɖ ɳɛɛɖʂ ɑ ʂɑɾƈɑʂʈίƈ  ƒоɳʈ! An attempt was made to make the characters "dripping" with sarcasm.

http://www.makesarcastic.com Bobjjones (talk) 17:10, 9 August 2017 (UTC)


 * This talk page is for discussing improvements to the article, not for general discussion of the article's topic. - Sum mer PhD v2.0 23:08, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Examples are sarcastic, not ironic?

 * That speech was not boring at all
 * It truly is a beautiful work of art
 * The cheque is in the mail
 * The Irony Mark is an excellent invention by the French

I don't see them as ironic, well except perhaps the cheque one- I didn't get that one. To me they all read as sarcasm/snide remarks.


 * I see your point, but this is how I understand the whole irony thing:
 * sarcasm is indeed a type of verbal irony.
 * The statements are not necessarily sarcastic. A visitor to an art exhibition could be saying the second statement to the artist to be polite, while other visitors are aware of the speaker's true opinion (i.e. the speaker means something other than what is said, and a second audience is aware of the real meaning).
 * (NB, the last statement was added briefly by a new editor, and was promptly removed as unencyclopedic by another editor).
 * I hope that clarifies that, but if you can think of more illustrative examples, it'd be nice to see them too. Rod ESQ 05:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

In my experience, a sarcasm mark would prove itself more useful than an irony mark, though perhaps the irony mark might get used as a sarcasm mark as well. Sarcasm is so very hard to get across well, and especially in text. 137.238.69.130 23:30, 14 May 2006 (UTC)Tchalvak

Sarcasm is very hard to get across well`~` Froggo Zijgeb 06:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, in my opinion, the only kind of irony that could ever warrant a punctuation is sarcasm, i.e., verbal irony that isn't necessarily apparent from context, but would sometimes need added intonation. This is often a dry humour statement. The current mark looks far too much like a question mark to be added behind a non-question statement. Nyerguds (talk) 08:47, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I find it more(?) than ironic that there is no agreement of that definition here. Please consider the lengthy notes/essay with the MW dictionary definition. Among those: the word has been misused for over 100 years.

To distinguish irony from satire and sarcasm,   remember that irony usually pertains to situations while satire and sarcasm are forms of expression. People make satire and sarcasm happen. Irony is just there.
 * irony: Merriam-Webster.com https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony#note-1       "2a(1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result"
 * —Cheers!  --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:49CD:A3FE:453E:D20C (talk) 00:17, 15 December 2018 (UTC)—Doug Bashford

Jokes
Now it's worse, these sentences are jokes not irony!! Irony is when you say the opposite of what you think to show that it can't be right. Martious 20:10, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
 * If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular
 * I'd give you a taste but your tongue's in the stew


 * Irony is also using a word for something other than its literal meaning, which would account for the first statement. And the second statement is actually situational irony(giving someone a taste of something when they have no tongue would be pointless) and the use of the word taste is subtly ironic in itself. While I agree that jokes are not necessarily appropriate in an encyclopedia article, your definition of irony is narrow. --Shadowdrak 22:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

See the undoing of the Snark (.~) with my notes at http://typophile.com/node/28817?from=50&comments_per_page=50#comment-164282. -lysdexia 20:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Interrobang‽
The 4th example image is wrong -- it is clearly an interrobang.

Alternatives
I don't know if it's worth noting, but here in the UK, bracketed exclamation marks are used on TV subtitles to indicate sarcasm:


 * Oh, that's just perfect(!)

David 13:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)


 * What if the sarcasm is too calm to use an exclamation mark? OrangeAipom (talk) 02:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The example given above seems rather calm to me, unsuitably so for an exclamation mark. It's used for calm examples too Tainted Deity (talk) 19:03, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This article used to note a number of alternatives, including the one I use—".~"—which I got from this proposal here: http://typophile.com/node/28817 I don't know if it's appropriate to edit this page to mention it or not. 208.47.211.5 (talk) 19:34, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

schedule: sense 1: (!) or -!?- or ¡ // sense 2: (?) or -?!- or ¿ in our region we use sense 2 (middle symbol), while leaving the second one as a sense of a surprise that makes you curious [sense: is it right?, maybe or not!] Tabascofernandez (talk) 04:41, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Percontation (← Reinventing the wheel)
I've only just found this page, but I find it misconceived. The new 'irony mark' will sink or swim as readers will, but the reversed question-mark first appears (to the best of my knowledge) in the late C16, where it functions as a punctus percontativus, indicating what it Latin would be called a percontation, as distinct from the punctus interrogativus, our standard question-mark, indicating an interrogation. It can be found in print in Gilbie's edition of the Psalms and in MS in (among others) the hand of Ralph Crane, who provided copy for several texts in Shakespeare's First Folio. For details see the magisterial and seminal work by M. B. Parkes, Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Scolar Press, 1992).

In Latin the distinction of questions is fairly strict: an interrogation (from rogare, the root of pro/rogation) demands the answer yes or no, whereas a percontation (from roots embodying the idea of sounding unknown water with a pole) doesn't. 'Did you do it?' is interrogative, 'Why did you do it?[but reverse that mark]' is a percontative. Latin has at least two other verbs of enquiry, quaestio and scisitare; English isn't exactly poor in them, but relies heavily on 'question' and 'interrogate' + Germanic 'ask', and isn't always very clear on the distinctions. The problem is exposed if one points out that the percontations Gilbie and others marked might also in English be called 'rhetorical questions'--a phrase whose own inadequacies (deliberately) blur, for example, any distinction between a question not meant to be answered and one that cannot be answered, or cannot be answered in time or in a particular context : in any of which cases 'irony' might supervene. And people don't use marks they don't clearly understand: look at the ebb of the semi-colon.

Practically speaking, the reason the percontation-mark didn't catch on, nor the French irony-mark cited at the beginning of the page under discussion, is simply that it required a new piece of type. The inverted Spanish initial question-mark, by contrast, may have been mandated by the Real Academia Espanola in 1754, but they could have mandated all they liked if it had not been possible to set the 'new' mark simply by using an inverted piece of existing type. The percontation-mark, being reversed rather than inverted, cannot be so type-set. I suspect myself that wrong-fount question-marks (esp. in blackletter) may sometimes have been used, but historically it's clear that while some were cast for particular printers, the extra expense + lack of obvious English rationale, did for it. True, the financial-pragmatic problem is now side-stepped, and with laser printers etc. all bets are off as far as the evolution of punctuation is concerned. But as far as really establishing such a mark goes ...

--John.C.Lennard 00:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * See, among others. — DIV (128.250.204.118 07:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC))


 * I think John C. Lennard's reasoning is very good and agree that this mark will sink or swim depending on readers. Unfortunately.  Because (apropos re-inventing the wheel) this mark is for readers who can't or won't use their brains to understand what is being said, and therefore they need to have it explained to them.  Should an example of dramatic irony be so punctuated in the script of the play?  Conversely, will adding this mark to "rain on your wedding day" actually make it ironic?  24.27.31.170 (talk) 16:28, 16 October 2011 (UTC) Eric

Revert
A recent manual edit removed all information regarding speculation on the rarity of the irony mark, and all information about it's redesigns in 2006-07. This latter information is relevant and if not of high enough standard, should be rewritten, given citations and improved, not deleted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Reverting#When_to_revert

Lets all assume good faith and work together to make this a better article.

Please, everyone, this article feels roughly sewn together, but making it shorter is not the solution. --Choz 02:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It was tagged with an original research warning for quite a while. Nothing happened. Please read WP:V. That explains that uncited material can be removed. Certainly speculation must be cited. Nobody is assuming bad faith, but sometimes removing unverified information is the correct action. If you wish to re-add the material with citations, I encourage you to do it. But unverified speculation does not belong on Wikipedia. --Eyrian 02:35, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I have now read Section 3: Usage was tagged for original research or unverified claims. I am incline to agree that it is speculative. Sections 5 had no notice. Section 6 no notice and two citations.


 * Aside from that, the encouragement to simply remove things that are not cited, rather than tag them, is specifically regarding statements of dubious truth. Both the new designs come up on the first page of Google or Yahoo when searching for 'irony mark". In the preceding paragraph of Burdon of Evidence, three methods are described for noting what you would like to see cited. However, Section 6 was well cited, but you have removed the information twice. In fact, this second revert happened as I was adding additional citations to this and other articles you have chosen to delete portions of with out discussion. Those now have citations as well.


 * Please, keep in mind the revert guide's suggestion, "Do not simply revert changes that are made as part of a dispute. Be respectful to other editors, their contributions and their points of view." If you feel that a edit is order, please discuss it here, on the talk page, where other interested parties can join.
 * --Choz 03:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Just because you can Google something doesn't mean the result will be a reliable source, or imply any kind of notability. Sections 5 and 6 were based entirely on self-published assertions of importance, which simply doesn't matter. They were describing similar marks created by redlinked institutions/individuals, with no reliable sources (again, self-published doesn't count) for citations. --Eyrian 03:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * You ignore that neither section had any request for citations yet. You still do not tag or discuss anything before you remove it, as appears is your habit often, despite that being best practice. Why not improve the article by including anything about the resurgence of redesigns? I find "redlinks" alone a poor criterion and "quite a while" a bit vague.--Choz 12:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Vague? Very well, how about three months? That's not just some "I wasn't looking at the article that day"; it's a pattern of poor quality. My previous actions depend on the quality of what's missing. I did, in fact, try to look for some real citations for the new attempts at marks. There were no reliable sources that came up. No, I didn't do a massive search, but that's not my responsibility. It was not cited to reliable sources; that's enough. The reason I brought up redlinks is that if either of those two sections has a blue link (Cunningham or the Dutch Foundation Collective Propaganda), then I could've looked at those for other sources and assertions of importance. Articles are not improved by adding random unsourced information. --Eyrian 18:14, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Again, that note was only about one section, but ...whatever. It is everyones responsibility. There is still lots of unsourced info, just as there was months ago (the last time the page looked this sparse). I mean, even the credited inventor is a bunch of redlinks with no citations, so I am not impressed with your agenda. For now, I am waiting and watching to see where the community decides to go with this article. If everyone else wants to take and expand on what is now in the history, it is there for them to play with. I think the article needs a detailed, caring total rewrite, and will be available to help as I can.--Choz 04:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It sounds as though User Choz is actually involved in development of this punctuation concept, and as such I wonder whether something like the guidelines under "Using the subject as a self-published source" applies. —DIV (128.250.204.118 08:55, 24 July 2007 (UTC))


 * Indeed, I was involved, along with others, in the development of one English language verbal irony mark, and work now to promote adoption in the typographic community. I am a type designer, and my server hosts thesnark.org. This close interest, while it leaves me knowledgeable on the subject, may make my voice too close to "original" for the comfort of some wikipedians. I do not attempt to either hide my interest in the topic (it is linked from my homepage), nor hammer the point home repeatedly (that is annoying). In my opinion, the details I have listed are as non-contentious, factual, not overly self-serving and relevant to the article's topic as I can possibly make them. I assumed that if they needed improvement, the usually healthy mode of a wiki would resolve it. Now, it has evolved into a flip-flop situation. Revert wars are not good for any of us. I was taking a wait-and-see approach to this article, but now am going to ask for a rewrite, and hope that other punctuation fans and experts come to work on the article. If anyone here knows how to promote that, please do so.


 * When considering the English and Danish irony marks, the actual notability of the somewhat obscure French mark (that the article currently centers on) should perhaps be considered. For example, there are no citations for the point d'ironie's historical section. As far as I know, there is no English language references to the French mark (aside from a recent addition of a potentially coincidental resemblance to historical marks in Old English and Latin scripts), nor any potential English language references at all. Considering all of this, I wonder what the threshold is for notability in an article on such an obscure topic; is it the same as for more general topics, like cats or pizza? Should it have the same broad standard for citation? Even more drastic, is the world better served by removing this article completely from the English Wikipedia?


 * If the article deserves to exist, I cannot see how an un-sourced reference to the French (and Ethiopian) incarnations are encyclopedic, but even a mention of the contemporary English or Dutch versions, with "weak" citations is completely inappropriate. I feel this article should exist, so lets make it better!--Choz 22:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Unrevert
I've reinstated the majority (not all) of the previous content that had been added over time and built this article up into something useful. Although there has ostensibly been a debate here about whether statements have been cited, or constitute original research, I can't help thinking that the reversion was an example of overzealous editing (not uncommon enough on WP). The justification is simple: the statements are not "original research" or "uncited claims", rather they are "common sense" or "obvious from our everyday experience". By way of example, consider an article on cows: there is no justification for deleting text that states that cows are the largest supplier of milk for human consumption, or that they eat grass, or that they have four-chambered stomachs. Yet the reversion carried on at this article is basically equivalent. Sure such citations might be nice, but they cannot be considered essential. —DIV (128.250.204.118 08:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC))
 * You're quite wrong. Please read WP:V for a start. There is no evidence of the importance of the marks listed there, and it's quite unacceptable to retore material dependent on self-published sources. --Eyrian 08:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * He is not purely wrong. By the first pillar, not only is "no original research" important, but so is "accuracy". Very important. This requires a trade-off sometimes, and that is why "Wikipedia has no firm rules". DIV has valid points, and each person interested here should involve themselves in improving the article. Whether or not anyone else ever writes a book about it, there are newer, relevant designs of the irony mark. That, at least, is a fact.--Choz 22:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Accuracy can only be ensured by using reliable sources. Things need to be verifiable. That's simply nonnegotiable. This isn't rule creep, it's a fundamental principle of Wikipedia. --Eyrian 01:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Then verify. For example, I am a type designer, and know that some typefaces include a different form of the irony mark. From myfonts.com to openfontlibrary.org there are fonts that include that mark. Some created by me, some by others. No one on Earth (aside from me) currently documents this, because the files are simply there to look at or download. Res ipsa loquitur. Regardless of who puts the material in this article, deleting any mention of what Underware, !Exclamachine and other contemporary type designers are doing is making the article more inaccurate. Perhaps this should be reviewed by other editors. Are you capable of bringing this to the attention of others?
 * --Choz 19:11, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest filing a request for comment. Again, reliable sources need to be cited. I'm not a typographer; I don't even know where to look. --Eyrian 19:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Choz ...I'm not wrong ;-p
 * I have skimmed through WP:V for a start. If the article states that the snark glyph was proposed, and this is backed up by an archived discussion page, then the statement is verified.  Sure, if the article were to claim that the snark glyph has already been adopted by major publishers, then additional references would be required ...but the article did not make such claims.
 * I also find it disagreeable for entire sections to be deleted. Did you really have a problem with everything that was removed, or was that just easier for you, Eyrian?
 * —DIV (128.250.204.118 07:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC))

Templates added
I have added a request for experts to this page and for a rewrite to the article itself. Lets hope things get better. I have listed myself as a maintainer, and I believe I can be contacted (emailed) from my user page. However, I welcome discussion here first. My wiki-coding skills are minimal. In late August, I will attempt, with the aid of machine translation, to make an English language version of the article discussing the history of the irony mark. If anyone is fluent in French, they are welcome to take over that task, and I will host it.--Choz 23:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Why the differnt shape for the love mark (or point d'amour)?
Was not the correct shape? I appreciate that it is a jpg, but the svg is wholly different, not nearly as circular, and looks to be different at the bottom. Is the jpg shape just as correct to use, was the only problem that the jpg image is of lower quality? I've been using the jpg shape quite a lot when writing recently; I'd hate to think that it wasn't correct! Thank you very much. 82.27.19.89 18:48, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I can't answer your question, but observe that in one the point sits below the heart, while in the other it is part of the heart shape. I would also suggest that the marks are rendered in a 'handwritten' style (to me), so that perhaps an extra degree of lattitude would be allowed in terms of the details of the shape.
 * —DIV (128.250.204.118 07:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC))

Snigger point
"In 1912, the writer Ambrose Bierce proposed a new punctuation device called a “snigger point,” a smiling face represented by  \__/! , to connote jocularity." excerpted from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/fashion/29emoticon.htm?pagewanted=2&_r=1 ((-: Just Between You and Me ;-)), emphasis added. —DIV (128.250.204.118 07:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC))

Synonym
Isn't that the purpose of the double exclamation point? &amp;#8252; → ‼ --Belg4mit (talk) 19:14, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It's not mentioned at !!, where a couple of other uses are given. No suggestions in .  —DIV (128.250.80.15 (talk) 09:28, 26 May 2008 (UTC))
 * it's exactly works as -?!- (I tell you)

Tabascofernandez (talk) 04:19, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

why
is the main image a square? --Jakezing (talk) 00:02, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Am i seeing this character correctly?
at all points when i see this character appears i see this image; http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/204/ironyhy3.jpg i'm unsure if that is the character the article is about or if i'm seeing that because my computer doesn't support the character. if this is the case then the article should be altered to use an image file of the character in place of the character itself so that there is no confusion.

but then if that is the correct character none of this matters. --81.23.56.12 (talk) 16:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It must be cause I updated my computer to read all text.. got tired of that [] crap.--Ssteiner209 (talk) 13:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I a lit major and the article provoked a begging question
Isn't it just waiting to be made famous? In creative literature (and uncreative literature i.e. maddox.xmission com) (removed link) isn't this gem just waiting to be made famous? Whoever makes it famous would rightfully be mentioned in this article.

I'm taking a creative writing class and I feel this is an excellent question, and belongs in the article if I can be allowed to cite it with a source that says "many people become famous and make a literary technique popular in parallel fashion, so that they can be associated with it". i.e. the maestro lewis carroll

Can someone tell me kindly if this violates WP:synth because it does and it doesn't. I've retired as an editor but am obsessed for scoring a home-run (but no hard feelings, if using a broad source to purport a narrow detail is just my being selfish). I can handle constructive criticism. Sentriclecub (talk) 15:48, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Arabic Question Mark
The displayed charcter, "؟" (U+061F), is in fact an Arabic Question Mark, displaying characteristics such as BIDI Right-to-Left directionality. A mention of this? (The correct unicode character 'REVERSED QUESTION MARK' would be "⸮", U+2E2E). See List of Unicode characters, refer to fileformat.info: 'ARABIC QUESTION MARK' and 'REVERSED QUESTION MARK'. Dan ☺ 16:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Is anyone else having display problems with this? It's showing in a hex box for me.24.190.34.219 (talk) 05:14, 21 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I can see it fine, but I'm having problems with it making the typing reversed.
 * spanish -¿- is suitable [fallen question: no-need answered ask]

Tabascofernandez (talk) 04:15, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Smileys
Worth mentioning perhaps that the irony mark has effectively been superseded by the smiley? &mdash; 217.46.147.13 (talk) 13:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

SarcMarc
Is this not a commercial stunt? -- Evertype·✆ 22:56, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it is indeed, so I'm removing PabloBM (talk) 10:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * "Commercial stunt"? Are you implying something about me or something about the company responsible for the SarcMarc? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:43, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

P.H.D. in question marks
Who here has a P.H.D. in question marks? lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.93.4.41 (talk) 08:03, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I suspect that "question marks" is not a topic that you can get a Ph.D in. More likely I'd suspect that punctuation would fall under Doctor of Education (Ed.D) rather then a Doctor of Philosophy. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:54, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
 * and I, I'm a professional comment writer (in my native language news sites). I can honestly say to you that I need this, for expressing my feeling, if I wanna my comments to be effective and easily understandable. I hugely also use brackets, braces, parenthesis, half-spaces ... etc. I have my own phd.

Tabascofernandez (talk) 04:08, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge of SarcMark
Merge discussion section created since there didn't seem to be one.

Well, I'm in favour of it, since it made a brief news splash and hasn't appeared much since. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 16:41, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm curious to see if anything happens with Open Sarcasm. Gobonobo  T C 00:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Zing
The disambiguation page for "Zing" directs here, but the term is not mentioned in the article... -- IdS (talk) 10:06, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Hatnote
Ridiculous! A huge encyclopaedic hatnote? -- Evertype·✆ 01:14, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Renaming the article?
The article is hardly just about the Iron Mark. Currently it discusses four different punctuation marks: Irony Mark, Percontation Point, Temherte Slaq, and SarcMark, with no real reason to feature the Irony Mark over the other three in the article title and lead other than the fact that the other pages were merged into this page for convenience. All four marks relate similar things in a sentence, so perhaps renaming the page to something to reflect that? Or even to reversed question mark to cover the graphic character of the Irony Mark and Percontation Point? Regardless, I think the lead needs to be rewritten to reflect this. The Percontation Point predates the Irony Mark, and the SarcMark certainly seems to have more media coverage than the Irony Mark which I've never seen mentioned. In fact, there may even be a case to unmerge the SarcMark and/or Temherte Slaq if the article isn't renamed to focus on the meaning of the punctuation seeing as they use a different symbol than the Irony Mark or Percontation Point (regardless, the SarcMark info, if kept, should feature the graphic somewhere on the page). If anything the Percontation Point should get preference as it predates all the other marks and none of them are widely used to have a common choice, but I think a title reflecting their usage rather than form/name would be most appropiate. 209.2.224.108 (talk) 20:33, 17 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm going to move the page to the title "Irony Punctuation" to reflect the new information it contains.Hero1843 (talk) 16:31, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Vertical bar
This section has no references. Is there any reason it shouldn’t simply be deleted? Ewx (talk) 09:33, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Still no refs, so I’ve deleted it. Someone can add it back if they find any evidence of it actually being true. Ewx (talk) 08:14, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Irony - Won't display on Firefox or Chrome
This character won't display in either Chrome or Firefox. All articles on fonts, glyphs, unicode etc should be required to have image files for them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.229.60.94 (talk) 21:58, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You might want to try using a different computer, or getting rendering support for special characters. It's probably just problem on your computer because, if Chrome and Firefox couldn't handle special characters, neither would be very popular. What operating system do you use?  "User:Nicky Nouse" is not a valid HTML tag.   See Help:HTML in wikitext.  04:33, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

It should be simpler to display a picture of the character. I do not think me or the above person's inability to render the irony character are isolated cases. A static picture would also be easier to share when discussing the character as opposed to copying & pasting the character as text, which could be rendered in various ways depending on the user's font and font size settings. Themacguffinman (talk) 16:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I would also recommend changing to an image instead of the raw unicode, I can imagine a large number of people are using incompatible OS / browser and all they see is the funny squares. FR34K (talk) 18:13, 6 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm using Chrome on Windows 7 and it shows up as an empty box for me. CanadianJudoka (talk) 01:01, 26 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Me too, no problems with any of the other characters in the article, or in general elsewhere - suggests the problem is here and not with our computers, yes? As what the character looks like is all or nothing for this article, it should be an image. Same occurs in IE10. Halsteadk (talk) 19:41, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I tried various suggestions, but on Firefox 28 (Windows 7), it still displayed as 2E2E in a box. All the other unicode chars are displayed OK (as far as I can tell, some I have no idea what they should looks like). I tried using the { { unicode | #&2e2e } } template, that doesn't work. I found that Dejavu fonts had this char and works OK so far. I suspect those fonts may have been installed along with openoffice. Tho looking at Unicode_typefaces GNU Unifont seem to have the most unicode chars. I'll have a look into it... 60.242.97.120 (talk) 05:05, 4 May 2014 (UTC) That was me ˥ Ǝ Ʉ H Ɔ I Ɯ (talk) 05:07, 4 May 2014 (UTC) Well I downloaded GNU unifont, it looks terrible. Even the Dejavu font, while OK just didn't look as good as Ariel. So I'm back to Arial with 2E2E in a box, I'll change to Dejavu for the time I need to look at special chars...˥ Ǝ Ʉ H Ɔ I Ɯ (talk) 05:32, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thus illustrating one of the many dangers associated with complicated schemes such as Unicode when operating across myriad uncoordinated systems like "modern" personal computing devices (and don't get me started on phones/phablets/pads/other assorted nonsense). For the purposes of this discussion however, might I humbly suggest that for the mean time we simply substitute &#x061f; (x061F) in this article until the code mavens have caught up with the marketing mavens. There is probably an underlying technical issue -- the &#x061f;complicated scheme&#x061f; ?? -- as to why this has not been done thus far since it is a rather obvious solution ... but then Mom always did say I had a gift for the obvious. LOL Just a thought. JimScott (talk) 15:36, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

All of this begs a question as regards the original proposal: why the reverse question mark?? Isn't that symbol already in common use in one of the most common dialects on the planet? How are those poor folks going to express sarcasm in this manner if the symbol already means something else?!?! Or would that be &#x061f;!&#x061f;! LOL JimScott (talk) 15:36, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Blend in special marks
Would it be favorable to use CSS to make the SVG images of the special characters blend in better with the text? One example: Lorem ipsum dolor sit

which would make: Lorem ipsum dolor sit As you can see, when you hover over the love point, there is a "text cursor" and no link, so it is pretty much impossible to tell the text and image apart.

"User:Nicky Nouse" is not a valid HTML tag.  See Help:HTML in wikitext.  04:29, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Snark Mark - Is it valid?
There is a reference to something called the snark mark in this entry. In examining the cited references for this mark, it appears that all the references are written by Choz Cunningham, who appears to be wiki editor Choz, a frequent editor on this topic. I am by no means an expert editor, but the confluence of the creator of this mark also being a wiki editor as well as the sole reference for the mark seems un-encyclopedic to me. I also question the notability of the snark mark. I suggest that either a third party reference to this snark mark be found and added or the entry related to the mark be removed. 205.152.67.36 (talk) 22:27, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The glyph's official site, http://thesnark.org/, is mostly moderated by Choz Cunningham. —Preceding signed comment added by Nicky Nouse (talk • contribs • wikia) 02:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Karl Marx, sarcasm and (!)
Karl Marx used (!) in Das Kapital not to mark sarcasm. He used it when quoting other authors to ridicule their choice of words, but isn't that a different matter, more like (sic)?--Biologos (talk) 11:39, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
 * as you said, I think he used it after words not at the end of sentences. it can be took as "internal" exclamation of author. at end of a sentence -!?- (or spanish ¡) should be used; I think.

Tabascofernandez (talk) 04:10, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Use of (?) as irony mark in Spanish language
In social media, I have witnessed a large use of the question mark between parenthesis (?) as a sign of irony. That has been documented, as far as I could find, here and here. I thought it might be a valuable contribution to the article. Ohomemcueca (talk) 03:16, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
 * you can omit left parenthesis and replace the right one with an exclamation mark. I learned it for the first time in my favorite comic magazine.

Tabascofernandez (talk) 03:50, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Showing the actual character for users
The way the character (U+2E2E; ) is displayed in the top of the sidebar - the natural first or second place for a user to look for it - shows a 'can not display' character for me. (Google Chrome Desktop Version 49.0.2623.112) There was some discussion related to this previously, but obviously it never took off because the problem still exists. In addition, there are a couple other places in the article (for example, in the first paragraph of '|Percontation Point' (That's not an external link but Wikipedia insists on adding it because it's to a specific section.)) that inline SVGs should be used instead of the actual characters and are not being used.

This seems silly to me and I think it should be fixed. I would do it myself, except inline images confuse me and templates confuse me even more. To that end, I have compiled a list of resources that could be used to help display these characters:


 * Irony mark full, c/o Wikimedia Commons (SVG)
 * Google Image Searches for irony mark and irony mark svg (not very useful)
 * The fileformat.info page for U+2E2E Reverse Question Mark, fileformat.info's png and svg files for that codepoint, and a page that has png's of that codepoint in may different fonts
 * A Google Search for the character itself
 * The Graphemica page on it (not very useful)

Hope this helps improve the article!

PiNerd3 (talk) 03:40, 6 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I don't see it either. Why on earth isn't there an image for this of us who don't have whatever font it is that displa

ys it? So I patched in the SVG cited above. Probably will be reverted by some anal type who thinks we should all upgrade our browser/OS to view a webpage. 202.81.249.166 (talk) 13:18, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Off topic chat
my way

I always use in my comments -?!- for this purpose. and -!?- for a quite different sense. [it's not irony, it might be understood as "huh-what"] so first one can be shown as -¿- {because it doesn't need any answer, and the second as -¡-. Tabascofernandez (talk) 03:45, 10 August 2017 (UTC)


 * This page is for discussing improvements to the article, not for general discussion of the article's topic. - Sum mer PhD v2.0 04:10, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Questionable source?
Why is the cited source for the AlTeRnAtInG cApS usage indicating sarcasm marked as an unreliable source? I would consider knowyourmeme.com to be the definitive source on internet memes. Harperska (talk) 01:23, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

What Harperska said, but also for :^). You're not going to find any authoritative sources about :^) besides KYM that aren't hit pieces because of :^)'s roots in *chan culture. 68.60.202.174 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 08:34, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Alaternating caps
I think alternating caps should be mentioned here. The article on alternating caps says it resembles a mocking tone, but I think one could also say it resembles irony to some degree or in some cAsEs. Bransje (talk) 21:52, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Why is the line about College Humor included?
In the article under the section Other typography the article states "CollegeHumor jokingly proposed new marks called “sarcasticies” which resemble ragged, or zig-zagged parentheses, used to enclose sarcastic remarks." Why is this line included? It only references a primary source and does not seem to have had any effect on irony marks. bop34 • talk • contribs 15:42, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with bop34, it seems irrelevant. I also wonder if the mention about Spongebob memes is all that relevant. Memes are definitly used for ironic purposes, but this page is about irony punctuation. I dom't think this memes counts as punctuation. BizarreDove (talk) 22:36, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

To add to article
To add to this article: mention of the sarcastrophe (^), used to surround phrases uttered in an ironic fashion. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 03:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Reddit?
Why does it say that people who use reddit use /s? that's not reddit specific whatsoever it's much more associated (from my perspective at least, as a digital citizen) with neurodivergent communities. Not to say that my personal anecdotal experience should be the core of any article, but still it's definitely not specific to reddit. 51.37.160.36 (talk) 20:32, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Reverse italics?
Is there a way to actually reverse italics? Because, I've wanted that feature since forever, but not necessarily to indicate sarcasm. -- sion8 Contributions &#124; Tᴀʟᴋ ᴘᴀɢᴇ 18:26, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion from Germany: Fe
The symbol for iron, get it? Brought to notice by Harry Shearer on his Le Show in the 1990s where he reported it as a sincere submission. Wikidbuzzz (talk) 21:31, 4 March 2024 (UTC)