On Pilcrows and Interrobangs

January 16, 2008

On Pilcrows and Interrobangs

Back when I worked on a publication in law school, one of the more tedious tasks (with possibly questionable efficacy) was the “read-aloud.” In this final stage of editing, pairs of editors would read rather dry and lengthy articles, and their footnotes, out loud to each other. The reading included punctuation. (Thus, the first sentence above would be read: “Back when I worked on a publication in law school comma one of the more tedious tasks open paren with possibly questionable efficacy close paren was the open quote read hyphen aloud stop close quote.”) My editing partner had a special talent for distinguishing italicized commas from standard font commas (a task more difficult in some fonts than others, and this was a font with jaunty commas!). The most exciting moments (other than finding those pesky italicized commas) were the rare exclamation mark, which one reads aloud as “bang.”

For the rare soul out there who enjoys having the labels for punctuation, I have two to add to your collection. The interrobang and the pilcrow. The interrobang combines a question mark and an exclamation point and looks like this:

The pilcrow designates a paragraph and looks like this:

Interestingly, monks used the pilcrow in the Middle Ages to designate a new train of thought, thereby conserving paper space. (I extrapolated a bit from this article, which does not mention monks or paper space, but who else would be using the convention regularly and for what other reason?)

Rumor has it that some chambers use read-alouds before opinions are published. (If I were clerking for such a judge, I would definitely try to slip in a bang, or maybe even an interrobang to spice up that task!) If I had to design an editing process now, I am not sure that read-alouds would be part of my system. Of course, its efficacy is only as good as the editors. Our publication did pretty well, all things considered. I did, however, have occasion to cite to it after its publication and, sadly, had to use a “sic” to denote a mistake in the original. I suppose it remains a good opportunity to practice humility!

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