Friday, November 23, 2012

INTERROBANG




It’s an onomatopoeia. You know what it is and you likely crave it as much as the rest of us.

 
I have a son who loves Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. “Now I know how to make a universe,” my son told me. Last night, we read If I Ran The Zoo, by…do I need to even say? My son is eight years old.  True, what excites him is not necessarily what an average eight-year-old might find intriguing (he reads books on the periodic table! But still loves Seuss!) but he is like everyone else in that he thrives when given the chance to catch his breath on a page.
 
I can’t pretend to say that Bryson and Seuss have a lot of overlap. But there is something magic in each. Dwelling on either end of the reading spectrum they still share a certain magic, something we discover on pages contained in both books. They give us the interrobang! And, yes, it is, more or less, a real word. The ‘interrobang’ is a construct intended to combine both the ! and the ? into one very fuzzy (imagine this at 12 font! ) and almost impossible to discern ( ‽  ) punctuation mark. It never really caught on, but it says A LOT!  It is a vital and integral part of MG lit and often present in books that endure and that we love, over and over. When given literature that provides the opportunity to have our own discovered interrobang, not force-fed, overly-intentional, or otherwise clearly attempted without merit, we can feel that interrobang and we love it. MG lit seems to contain loads.

J K Rowling gave a generation (or several) a new sense of that experience and brought back reading to the world of kids. While there were always great works, reading had lost its luster, somehow, and was not considered cool. Now, thanks to her, people are reading our works with vigor (and hopefully some interrobanging) it spreads. There seems to be lulls in the capacity for generations to achieve the interrobang, almost like people who become acclimated to athletics or medications or spicy foods and need more intensity than they once did to get it to work. But it does work and those waves bring new and exciting things. Boredom only happens when there is lack of interest, since there is always something interesting out there.

We have a saying in our family- only boring people get bored. I suppose we must all find the interrobang within and, as writers, put that interrobang on the page to share.


10 comments:

  1. I'm not sure if it's something you're planning to pursue any further, but if you're interested I've written about the history of the interrobang here and here. I hope they're of some use!

    Thanks,
    Keith

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am both honoured and intrigued and greatly appreciate your comment, Keith. Shady Characters looks like a fabulous book (I've got Eats, Shoots, and Leaves and find nerdish pleasure in examining the misadventures of punctuation)For ANYONE who finds the interrobang interesting (and I am now partial to the akas ‘exclarogative’ and especially‘consternation mark') how could you miss his link above?! (or is it !?...?)Again, thanks, Keith!

      Delete
    2. Thanks! I hope you like the book when it finally comes out next autumn. It was great to read about someone else's enthusiasm for the interrobang!

      Delete
  2. I was just reading about the interrobang recently, so how fun to have it make an appearance on Project Mayhem!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's like that, isn't it, Dawn? Once you hear of something, it shows up everywhere.

      Delete
  3. I can see why it never caught on, as it would be difficult to distinguish on the page, but I wish it had. It's fun to say.

    I might have to introduce it to my fifth grade class.

    And then I suppose they will end every sentence with it. :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great idea, Dianne. Maybe see if someone has a better design? Or someone might have an idea for another undiscovered but badly needed punctuation!? Keith has other designs on his blog. A couple seem like better options than the one we see here.

      Delete
  4. OMG, I want to use this!!!!

    ?!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have never heard of this, but I love the idea! No more !?! punctuation. :) Brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've never heard of this either, but it's a fascinating idea, and it sounds like it would be a lot simpler than commas to learn how to use correctly.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for adding to the mayhem!