Sometimes an exclamation mark just does not suffice – neither does just a question mark – the two have to be used together for full impact of the incredulity and shock expressed by the question. For those times we have the interrobang. A perfect example of when an interrobang is required is when one girlfriend says to another – “He said what‽” or when you ask your family, “Who ate the last piece of cake‽”
The interrobang was first used by advertising agency owner Martin K. Specter when he used it in a TYPEtalks magazine article in 1962. The term itself is a combination of the Latin word for a rhetorical questions interrogatio, and the printer and proofreader’s slang for the exclamation mark, bang. The Remington typewriter included the interrobang key in its typewriter in 1968 – but sadly this very useful punctuation mark did not really gain much traction after the 1960s.
Interrogati+ Bang ?!
With its balance of excitement and outrage, and the prevalence of social media in our lives, I am surprised the interrobang has not caught on more, it seems to be a match made in heaven. Perhaps the time is right for the interrobang to rise again and take its rightful place in our shockaholic world.
The beauty of language is that it is always changing – it molds itself to fit the needs of the times. Over the ages, as we have gone from using scribes who wrote and copied everything by hand, to the printing press, and now to word-processing tools, it is not just language – the alphabet too has changed.
The much loved and decorated ampersand is one such character that was once an alphabet and is today considered punctuation (in Unicode) and a symbol. In fact it was, for a while, the 27th alphabet of the English language.
Ampersand traces its origins to the Roman scribes.
The ampersand traces its origin – as does so much else – to Ancient Romans, specifically Ancient Roman scribes. The scribes would write in cursive in order to speed up their work and when they wrote et – Latin for “and” – they started joining the two letter together and formed the ligature &. So the e and the t – hastily written started to look like the symbol or glyph &.
The ligature was then adopted by the printing press – in fact the Gutenberg press had 292 such glyphs. For years, the glyph & was the 27th letter of the alphabet – so when students recited the alphabet they would end with X, Y, Z and per se and – which literally translates to (the character) & by itself (is the word) and. The “and per se and” got corrupted and started to be pronounced as ampersand – and the name stuck even when it was removed from the alphabet (sometime in the mid to late 19th century).
Ampersands are most commonly used today in names of companies – AT&T, Barnes & Noble, Ben & Jerry’s, H&M are some that come to mind instantly.
On this Easter Sunday I started thinking of the magnificent Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, which had a devastating fire almost a year ago. On Good Friday this year the cathedral had a small closed service. Regardless of one’s faith, the beginning of the rebirth of this medieval church from the ashes of that devastating fire, is reason enough to celebrate.
Maurice Utrillo (`1883 – 1955), Nore Dame, 1909. Musee de l’Orangerie
Marc Chagall, (1887 – 1985) Notre-Dame en gris, 1955
JMW Turner (1775 – 1851). Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, 1826. Tate, London
Jacques-Louis David (1748 – 1825). The Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I and the Crowning of the Empress Josephine in Notre-Dame Cathedral on December 2, 1804, 1806-07. Musee du Louvre, Paris
Henri Matisse (1869 -1954) Notre-Dame,1900 Tate, London
Childe Hassam (1859 – 1935), Notre Dame Cathedral Paris, 1885. Detroit Institute of the Arts.
Edward Hopper (1882 – 1967) Notre Dame de Paris, 1907. Whitney Museum of American Art
…Ten thousand I saw at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance…
William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770 and remains one of the world’s most beloved. He was from the Lakes District region of England, and it was here, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, that he wrote the Lyrical Ballads in 1798. This collection of poems stared a literary, cultural, and artistic movement known as Romanticism. There is no doubt that nature, particularly the landscape of England, was his muse – we can see that from his words, “Come forth into the light of things, Let nature be your teacher.”
The landscape that inspired Wordsworth
The world has paused and one of the beneficiaries of that is nature – and as we look around at the resilience of nature and its ability to recover, we are inspired. We gain an awareness of how steadfast nature is, and its profound and extraordinary impact on us. Wordsworth knew well and loved the landscape he grew up in, and wrote over and over again about its ability to move him. One such poem is “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1978” or “Tintern Abbey” for short.
Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur.—Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves ‘Mid groves and copses. Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone.
English landscape artist JMW Turner (left) also found inspiration in the abbey, as did Welsh artist Edward Dayes.
Today I heard a speech by Queen Elizabeth on TV – she was speaking to her nation to remain united and resolute in the face of the current epidemic. What was startling for me about the speech was that she referred to a speech she and her sister gave in 1940 – that was 80 years ago!! I can’t imagine that there is any other world leader, part or present, that can say that. That got me thinking about all the brilliant, funny, and poignant things she may have said over the course of these years, and I decided that I would find some of the ones I liked and make that my Sunday Seven for this week.
We know, every one of us that in the end all will be well; for God will care for us and give us victory and peace. And when peace comes, remember it will be for us, the children of today, to make the world a better and happier place (Radio address to the children of the Commonwealth on Oct 13, 1940).
It has been women who have breathed gentleness and care into the hard progress of humankind.
The upward course of a nation’s history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women.
I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.
Work is the rent you pay for the room you occupy on earth.
It’s all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained.
True patriotism, doesn’t exclude an understanding of the patriotism of others.
In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognize how precious is the peace we have built in Europe since 1945.
..my strength and my stay..
He has, quite simply, been my strength and my stay all these years, and I and his whole family, and this, and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim or we shall ever know. (About her husband Prince Philip).
Many comparisons are being made nowadays of the current pandemic to Spanish flu in the early 1900s and the bubonic plague in the 1500s. Then, as now, the quickest way to stop the spread of the disease was through voluntary and enforced quarantines and keeping a safe distance from others. In towns across England one such reminder, of the social distancing that occurred, remains to this day.
Sitting unnoticed beside main roads, or near the outskirts of many towns all across England are stones that tell a story of the plague. These Plague Stones were hollowed out from the middle, filled with vinegar, and placed at the edge of town. Farmers were terrified to bring goods to market because of the plague, as a result of which there were severe food shortages in the towns.
People from the town left coins in the vinegar and retreated a safe distance (one would assume of 6 feet or more) away from the stone. Farmers then came to the stone, picked up the – now sanitized with vinegar – coin from the hollow and left their farm produce, eggs, bread, etc. by the stone for the person standing a safe distance away.
And that was how Plague Stones played their part in stopping the spread of the plague the 1500s – they were the contactless delivery of today.
These Plague Stones teach us the importance of social distancing in fighting any pandemic. And more importantly, they teach us the value of knowing our History and learning from it – knowing how our ancestors got through the plague will teach us how to get through our current crisis. (Images courtesy of UK town travel websites– exploreperinth.org.uk etc).
After Independence, it was important for Congress to know the total population of the fledgling nation, and know where its people lived. It was one of the first things that the new Congress instructed the government to do, and they wanted it done every 10 years (which continues to this day).This information was needed to form a representative government and to make the states pay their fair share of the Independence war bill.
And so on August 2, 1790 – the first census day – the brave counters – also known as enumerators – rode out on horseback to find the people of this country and count them for the first census.
The census listed the head of household and counted 1) The number of free white males age 16 and over (to get a handle on the number of men available for military service) 2) The number of free white females and all other free persons & 3) Number of slaves
There was supposed to be a form for recording the answers, but most often the Marshals had to provide whatever paper they could find to record the information. The census of 1790 took 18 months to complete, and counted 3.9 million people.
Census 1790 – Newburyport, MA
Counting the People
What started in 1790 continues to this day in America. Today, April 2, 2020 is the 24th Census day, and the first that can be filled online.
My classes are online so like all students I’m home all day and listen to tidbits of what’s being said on TV. Last week I heard the word “Dutch Auction” on CNBC, and I was intrigued by the inclusion of the word Dutch – and researching this took me down quite an interesting path of discovery. Consider the number of additional words that have the “Dutch” qualification: Dutch treat, Double Dutch, to go Dutch, Flying Dutchman are some of the more common ones.
A Dutch Auction, unlike a regular auction, is one in which the auctioneer starts the auction at a high price, and the prices come down instead of going. This was the kind of auction first used in the tulip markets in the Netherlands – hence Dutch Auction
In a disorganized, fresh flower market, where time was of the essence, the auctioneers wanted the trading to be quick. They would start the auction at an artificially high price, which they would bring down in increments until they got their first bid – at which time the auction would end – and the flowers would be sold at that bid price. This form of auction is more beneficial to sellers (than buyers) because they could get higher prices than in a regular auction.
Dutch Auctions are most often used nowadays by the US Government when selling Treasury Bills and Notes – that’s probably what they were discussing on CNBC when I heard the term !!
What about the other words? Many of these have an equally interesting origin. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch and the English were the two great seafaring empires -competing with each other for control over maritime routes and colonies – waging as many as three wars over 20 years. One can imagine that the English sailors would have found numerous ways to insult their Dutch counterparts by qualifying all cowardly, low class actions as Dutch. And this was exactly how a number of these words entered the English dictionary.
Going Dutch, which now means to split a bill at a restaurant, would have started as a reference to Dutch frugality or stinginess. Similarly, Dutch Party is when everyone brings a dish to the host’s house, and a Dutch treat is even worse – when you get invited out to a restaurant for a treat and a bill is sprung upon you at the last minute.
Double Dutch is another interesting term for a jump rope game which has origins in New York which had a lot of Dutch immigrants. It also means nonsense or something that makes no sense to the listener, as in “it’s all double Dutch to me” – because the English generally found the Dutch language incomprehensible.
Sometimes Dutch and Deutsch are confused – which is why Pennsylvania Dutch are called that instead of Pennsylvania Deutsch.
I was supposed to go to a Persian friend’s New Year part but that was cancelled. The Persian New Year or Nowruz is on March 20th. Every year Nowruz coincides with the arrival of spring – it is a celebration of the links between humans and nature. In honor of the Persian New Year I decided to do quotes by Persian poets for this week’s Sunday Seven.
Whatever is produced in haste, goes hastily to waste. Saadi Shirazi (1210 – 1291).
Have patience, all things are difficult before they become easy. Saadi Shirazi.
Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself. Rumi (1207 – 1273).
Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion. Rumi.
Raise you words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder. Rumi.
Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor. Rumi.
I died a lot to love a little with you. Yaghma Golrrouee
Your heart and my heart are very, very old friends. Hafiz (1315 -1390)
Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you. Hafiz.
It does not matter where I am. The sky is always mine. Sohrab Sepehri (1928 – 1980).
mimisawhney.com 