Another hypothesis is that it was originally a tilde or titlo, as in, one of several wavy or slanted markings used in medieval manuscripts to indicate things like abbreviations, which would eventually become various diacritics or ligatures. This first question mark was a decoration of one of these dots, with the “lightening flash” possibly denoting intonation and maybe linked with early musical notation such as neumes. (Aelius Donatus’ punctuation system, which was in use throughout the Early Middle Ages, consisted of simply plain dots at varying heights.) “A lightning bolt, striking from right to left,” Truss characterizes the late eighth-century punctus interrogativus. HistoryĪlcuin of York, according to Lynne Truss, is credited with inventing the current question mark in Western language. The question mark symbol is also frequently used to represent info that is missing or uncertain. For indirect inquiries, the question mark is not utilized. In several languages, the question mark (sometimes called an interrogation point, query, or eroteme in journalism) is a punctuation mark that denotes an interrogative clause or phrase.
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