Where Did The Question Mark & Exclamation Mark Come From? 

What comes to mind first for you when you think of a solitary question mark and exclamation mark? For me it's the blocks in Super Mario and the a alert enemy sign in MSG, hence why theyw ere in the video.

"I am so happy?" sounds like a sarcastic way of asking why you should be happy in response to something someone said.

Having an opening mark for questions is extremely helpful in Spanish and I wish English would adopt it. Specially for long questions. Maybe it’s just dyslexia, but I find it very confusing when reading a long question that I didn’t know was one until the very end. So I have to go back and re-read it to make sure that I got the meaning of the question. Also, having to read something aloud for a class that included a really long question that you didn’t realize was one until the very end and then having to do the “questioning-inflection” extra hard on the last syllable to hopefully communicate that it was supposed to be a question and that you read that whole thing in a neutral tone because you didn’t know before that point is a feeling that I will never forget. And I know it didn’t just happen to me. In coloquial use, only using the closing one should be fine. I mostly only use the closing one when texting in Spanish unless the question is long anyway. I do get that it would increase the amount of printing space necessary for some books and thus mess with typesetting and printing costs. Which is a fair concern and perhaps the main reason it has never been really pushed for as an official rule. I wish it was acceptable as an optional rule though.

When he said "it's just a theory", i could hear matpat saying "But hey, that's just a THEORY A LANGUAGE THEORY" 😂

As an American (in the south, if that matters) I've always called them an "exclamation point" and a "question mark" and never really thought about why one was a "mark" and one was a "point" lol, very interesting

The origin I've heard fits in with the medieval one: It started by following the period with a more-or-less horizontal line that is imitative/suggestive of the vocal tone at the end of the sentence that is distinct from the dropped voice at the end of a normal assertion. For a question it looked like a very stretched-out tilde, whose end indicates the raised tone at the end of a question. For an exclamation it indicated the flat tone of an emphatic statement (as in "that's that!"). Both of these gradually rotated a quarter turn counterclockwise and stylized to the modern forms.

I imagine that the exclamation mark was created as a visual contrast to the question mark... The world's two shortest telegrams came after Victor Hugo submitted his LES MISERABLES manuscript to his publisher. Hugo sent him a telegram with the message "?" The publisher replied with "!"

I can kind of see how the question mark might represent the twists and turns of a question, then the poet came along and figured a straight line more represented the straightforwardness of an exclamation.

7:19 in my head that went like "that's just a theory, a NAME theory" and patrick's voice turned into the voice of matpat

The Latin word "quæstiō" actually denoted something one is trying understand. The Ancient Romans didn't have a separate word for "question", instead using circumlocutions like "that which I may ask".

I wish there were more marks. Like a mark for disdain or dislike, or disgust, etc

Does anybody else say the ? as “Question Mark” and the ! as “Exclamation point?” I dunno, as an English native, that was what I was taught how to say these when I’m referring to them.

What I fi d weird is that the different theories are thousands of years apart. 2 of thosr can be easily invalidated by figuring out the oldest use of some form of the pointuation marks.

With cats, the ? Ocvurs when a cat is awake, alert, and happy. When a cat is startled, thsts when the ! Comes into play. When a cat is curious, they arevalso cautious, so they approach partly crouched and tale extended straight behind them but low to the ground in case they need to tur. & run. I do like the idea ofvthe tilted tilde though.

In Spanish, the exclamation mark is sometimes called "Signo de Admiracion" (Admiration Mark)

In America it’s called a “Question Mark” but an “Exclamation Point”

Well according to Aliester Crowley, they are the Hunchback and the Soldier. On the journey to enlightenment one must alternate between questions and bold assertions.

"IACOPO" is pronounced "YACOPO", as is its modern equivalent "JACOPO", which is "Jacob" in English.

Then there are more Marks. Firstly, I want to call the comma. (,) It happens when we enumerate. A dog, a cat, a mouse and a guinea pig. In German it is also used when we write two sentences together: They are all animals, mice and guinea pigs are rodents. Then there is the semicolon, half period, half comma. (;) I pack shirts, t-shirts, pants, socks ; a car, a train, a plane and a submarine into my suitcase.

I've always thought that English could benefit from using the upsidedown question mark (¿) and the upsidedown exclamation mark (¡) in the language. I think it would make reading the sentences a lot easier. We would use them the same way they're used in Spanish. I have also thought that it'd be neat if English had punctuation marks to indicate irony and sarcasm. I also think another punctuation mark called a "double comma" („) could come in handy to clear up some things when writing extremely long lists of items. This punctuation mark would make the long lists more aesthetically pleasing too. I would find long lists easier to read if this mark existed in English. I know the semicolon (;) exists and serves a similar purpose in English, but another mark for the same purpose could come in handy too. I think it could clean up some long lists and make them look nicer.

Alongside those, there have been other proposed end-of-sentence marks like the “love mark” (looks like two mirrored question marks to actually make a heart). There’s also the question comma and exclamation comma, which I think would be super useful in cases where it doesn’t feel like the sentence is quite over, but the phrase does need some emotional punctuation to it.

The tilde (~) is known in Spanish as "la tilde de la eñe", or simply eñe (enya), because of the way it modifies the "n" sound.

Punctuation is one of the biggest questions of grammar

7:20 "A Language Theory! Thanks for watching.▶️"

Hrm... you know, we have 2 cats where I work... "rodent control" ... but, maybe I do need to pay more attention to their tails. Not physical attention, but visual attention. They both seem to trust me, as I am the architect of one of their fast-travel systems AND I usually keep their known hiding spots secret.

What's interesting is that in Greek we use ! for exclamation but ; for questions. We never use the ? symbol which is interesting

The inherent difficulty of implementing the "interrobang" is that the symbol/mark is not found on typing keyboards. Kind of hard to use the mark if it's not available for use. 😏

Did anyone else grow up calling them "question mark" and "exclamation point?" Or the other way around. I've never thought about it before, that I use mark for one and point for the other. Isn't that interesting‽

My favorite usage is the 3Q2E sandwich to express outrageous disbelief. It's usually used in the phrase "are you f*cking KIDDING me?!?!?"

I wonder whether question and exclamation marks became more necessary as literacy became more popular. As more people were reading and doing so more privately, the marks were needed to replace not having a more experienced reader nearby who could help decide the intention of the work.

Another convincing theory regarding this is that these are the Arabic letters Ilef and Lam. Lam has the easiest explaination: the letter Lamedh means prod, or cane. Later Lamedh also aquired the meaning of student. Hence Talmud in Hebrew means study and Arabic Talamidh means student. Arabic being a language for the verry educated (the illustrious "third language" scholars learned). They could adopt the letter as a geeky easter egg: "ل = ?". Much like how the letter Y was adopted by the Romans. In Arabic, the particle "إ " implies urgency: "Come here" implies "at your leashure" But: "Hey come here" means"immediatly" The theory has convinced me as "إ " and "ل" both do look like an exclamation and question mark. Plus they are etymologically sound, plus these symbols where invented during the Arab golden age. ~My neighbour uses this "إ " before calling me: To him: "I come here" means You come here now! ~ How confusing.

“The Adventures of Tintin” comics use ! and ? really well to express surprise.

9:26 Maybe that's because it's ugly as sin. I, for one, am glad it's not commonly used.

The interrobang mark would be useful for fast reading and writing but it kinda feels weak. It kinda just look like a stylized lowercase q. Also the more question or exclamation marks the more stronger the sentence feels. Like shouting "THERE!!!" sounds louder than "THERE!" and it grabs more attention. Likewise with multiple question marks like "right???" sounds like you are really want to know more or uncertain than just "right?" Even more dots strengthen the sentence about thinking deeper like "Hmm... let me think..." than just "Hmm, let me think." This could be reason "WHAT?!" feels stronger and louder than "WHAT‽" because it contains more marks. You could just add more interrobang but it kinda looks more like question marks than a combination of them two. Maybe because the question mark by itself have the same height as the exclamation mark but wider due to its curves which makes the line longer and bigger. That's why exclamation marks are often specifically widen and filled out than usual in handwritten texts or images. Maybe we need a thicker punctuation mark for both "!" and "?" ? Or maybe we could just shorten the "?" so that it becomes more equal in size with "!" ?

6:00 new theory: the question and exclamation mark are derived from Patrick's right and left eyebrow respectively

And in comic books all statements, no matter how mundane, must end in a question mark.

The story I heard was that the question mark came from the word “quo” written vertically in the Middle Ages, eventually being abbreviated to qo in cursive, later being elided to a half Q and a dot for the o. Exclamation point came from IO written vertically. Same story.

I feel like there shoul be more of these. There are way more tones in which you can say a sentence than exclamation or question. It'd be awesome if we had ones to express things like sarcasm, or fatigue, soothing, or even just simply the opposite of exclamation and question

Yesterday I was wishing there was a video on this exact topic, and then you immediately upload it?!

Everyone knows Dr. Evil’s father invented the question mark.

I thought about how written Chinese has punctuation words instead of marks, basically a symbol that indicates the sentence purpose.

I had always though as a kid that the question mark looks kinda like a lowercase q with a dot underneath while exclamation mark looks like an upside down lowercase i. I haven't learned English at that point.

!? is the only correct order ?! has too wide gap between the dots unless you rally want to emphesize that you're asking and then screaming (which mostly you don't do)

Do you often say "uh" after you finish sentences normally or is that only when youre recording videos

Along which axis do you believe a question mark to be symmetrical?

I've seen "/s" used at the end of sentences meaning to be ironic or sarcastic. It does indeed look like a backwards question mark!

Wasn't expecting a GrayFace here LuL

Now days we are loosing the "¿" in spanish, the everyday use of it in chats and social media is killing it. ¡Save the "¿"!

‽ is a programmed key on my keyboard. I use it frequently enough.

In Spanish the name of "!" is still "signo de admiración"

Interesting, but what does it mean when you combine question marks and exclamation marks? Does that make it super-loud inquisitive?!?!

The backwards question mark, Patrick, have you discovered the elusive sarcasm font? Which I would imagine now is rendered useless thanks to the prevalence of emojis. American here who's not heard the term fullstop used for period, or if I did hear it I didn't make the connection. Though in using voice recognition to type this both words spelled out the same punctuation mark.

Definitely the cat hypothesis, that's definitely the correct one

Oddly I say question mark and exclamation point

Qo, would likely said as /ko/ since Q where basically a third way to write /k/.

Some random guy: hurdur im gonna make up these symbols from nowhere Future humans: wHeRe DiD tHeSe CoMe FrOm????!!!!

Verry interresting & amuseing !!, I like the cat's theory !!. So what's neXt ?¿

(8:25) How is the question mark symmetrical?

Question marks make more sense for languages that don't differenciate grammatically these sentences, such as Portuguese or Spanish. other languages usage of it makes me curious

I'm going with the cat theory - that one is just too much fun!

An exclamation mark is supposed to be a directive or whatever. Telling you to do something. Not for flavouring a sentence to be extra.

There is a question mark over the origin of the question mark. Therefore the origin of the ? should be represented by its own symbol of a question mark in normal font followed by a question mark in superscript so that it appears as ?^?. Maybe also !^?.

In french it is "point d'interrogation" and "point d'exclamation".

7:20 you missed an opportunity to say “that’s just a theory, A NAME THEORY!”.

This was awesome! You have the coolest facts. ¡!

YO! That's an amazing origin story!

was hoping the interrobang would show up

This video is simple and educational? What do you guys think!

2:58 if the tail is the mark's shape... what is the dot beneath it?

I suppose that the origins of both the question and exclamation marks are....well...a question mark in themselves, is what I get from this video.

! = huutomerkki = shouting mark

I'm guessing the apostrophe, comma, and quotation marks are in future videos

I shall always see the dot as a cat's arse from now on.

i have usaly seen /s being used to represent irony more often then mirored ?. waiting for pepole in 1000 years to wonder how they got irony marks

!s mean "new quest" and ?s mean "completed quest", but only if they're over people's heads. Wait, they don't do that in the real world?

What is question mark

What about the greek question mark? It looks like this ( ; )

I have the interrobang in my phone lol like i can just ‽

¿ is not upside down. It's the opening question mark. And ? Is not regular, it's the closing question mark.

I didn't know English words for those. I knew the question mark because it is called in my native language too. ❤

An interesting history of these marks.

I made a band called "Triple Screamer" or simply "!!!"

Not even a shout-out to Greek with our question mark :(

Nobody says "question point" ... Exclamation point, yes

🐈 😻 🐈‍⬛️ 🐱 created punctuation full stop ✋️

!?

It is difficult to see people adopting any new characters or punctuation these days, considering the concern already expressed about young people not learning writing well because of the ubiquity of device use, and the limitations thereof with respect to fonts available. If you bitmap a new character for yourself nobody else's device will be able to display it. With a pen you can do anything. Edit: - An earlier commenter has made me a liar by using ‽ just like that, dammit!

For your next video I suggest you look into why saying “JUST THEORIES” is so problematic.

And thats on period sis

I Love You. I Love You! I Love You? Quite a difference,

Þ

I’ll try to remember Irony mark = ؟

They come at the end of the sentence. Sad!

Good.

Nice.......😊 Nice! 😳 Nice? 🤔 Nice¿ 🤨 Nice video. ❤❤

so the question mark is the tail of a cat what about the dot is it the bumhole of the cat

(!) is irony/sarcasm indicator

Woah‽

I still say cats…

Better work then Vox