Shady Characters
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15
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Average rating4
In *Shady Characters*, Keith Houston weaves a fascinating trail through the nooks and crannies of typographical history, from the Library of Alexandria to the halls of Bell Labs. Whether investigating the annotating duo of asterisk (\*) and dagger (†); the plucky pilcrow (¶) and humble ampersand (&); or the at sign (@) and octothorpe (\#), both newly reinvigorated by the Internet, *Shady Characters* will delight all who cherish the unpredictable and surprising in the writing life.
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This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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When the quotation mark does succeed in sparking debate, it attracts mild tut-tutting rather than genuine outrage. Though there is transatlantic disagreement over whether to enclose speech in ‘single' or “double” quotes, for instance, it comes nowhere near the level of hand-wringing inspired by the semicolon, whose tricky usage has driven it almost to extinction. Neither does the occasional unnecessary “use” of quotation marks induce the howling apoplexy provoked by a simple misplaced apostrophe: whereas one English council was driven to institute an apostrophe “swear box,” café menu offers of “freshly baked ‘bagels,”' “‘fresh fish,” and the like attract typically little more than a genteel ribbing. Unlike the “Oxford,” or serial, comma, quotation marks or “inverted commas” have never become a trending topic on Twitter, nor have they inspired a pop song in their name.
* And I really wish I knew how that paragraph was going to display cross-browsers, devices and in the various places I'll post this...
This book, as it turns out, is not just about unusual marks of punctuation, nor even punctuation in general. In following the warp and woof of individual shady characters throughout their lifetimes, it is the woven fabric of writing as a whole that emerges. And in today's writing, the printed and electroluminescent characters we read on a daily basis and the scrawled handwriting that occupies the diminishing gaps between computer monitors, tablet computers, and smartphone screens, this history stares right back at us.
Shady Characters
