gwax's rumblings

I have just dis­cov­ered that there is, not only, a name for the com­bi­na­tion of the inter­rog­a­tive point (ques­tion mark) and the excla­ma­tion point but also a typo­graph­i­cal sym­bol. The Interrobang is this com­bi­na­tion and can be rep­re­sented as ‘?!’, ‘!?’ or ‘‽’. In the past, I have used ‘?!’ because I felt that it pro­vided an appro­pri­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of ques­tion­ing and excited empha­sis; I pre­fer the excla­ma­tion after as it is the ques­tion that is being empha­sized, not the empha­sis being ques­tioned. Now, how­ever, the sin­gle typo­graph­i­cal char­ac­ter pro­vides me the oppor­tu­nity to con­cisely express, in writ­ing, simul­ta­ne­ous inquiry and surprise.

Unfortunately, although avail­able in uni­code, many fonts do not have ‘‽’ and there is no easy char­ac­ter com­bi­na­tion that will lead to it.

In the world of HTML, you can often get away with ‽