Something that is frequently lost in text-based communications (e.g. chats, texts, and even WordPress posts) is sarcasm; so unfortunately for everyone, your clever joke might be misinterpreted by the intended recipient and turn out horribly, horribly wrong. Therefore I propose we re-introduce a lost piece of punctuation: the irony mark.
The irony mark looks like this: ؟
Basically, it’s a backwards questions mark, and indicates sarcasm or irony. Wikipedia has some info about it:
“Although in the written English language there is no standard way to denote irony or sarcasm, several forms of punctuation have been proposed. Among the oldest and frequently attested are the percontation point invented by English printer Henry Denham in the 1580s, and the irony mark, furthered by French poet Alcanter de Brahm in the 19th century.” — Wikipedia
So why isn’t this is common use? I mean, it’s standard Unicode–it wouldn’t take some kind of crazy codec to display it.
I suggest keyboard manufacturers replace the tilde key with a key for the irony mark. I mean seriously, I can’t even remember the last time I used the tilde key.
