Language: New Punctuation Mark

Some expressions are hard to punctuate. Take the phrase "How about that"; too sprightly for a plain ordinary . , it is sometimes too ironic to justify an ebullient ! . More often than not, isn't it really a question?

Thanks to the American Type Founders Co., Inc., an easy solution is at hand: the interabang, , a punctuation mark included in a new A.T.F. type face called Americana. The symbol was invented by Martin K. Speckter, an advertising-agency president and hobbyist printer, who had long brooded over the proper punctuation for such rhetorical questions of daily life as "Who forgot to put gas in the car" or "What the hell." Speckter's device, which he prefers to call the interrobang ("bang" is printer's slang for an exclamation point), remained just an idea until Detroit Graphic Artist Richard Isbell casually included it in the Americana face he was designing. Delighted by its possibilities, the A.T.F. plans to include it in all new types that it cuts.

If the interabang gains the acceptance of grammarians, printers and writers, it will be the first punctuation symbol to enter the printed language since the introduction of the quotation mark during the late 17th century. Some typographical experts have already hailed its unique ability to express the ambiguity, not to mention the schizophrenia, of modern life. The interabang, cracks Harvard University Press's monthly bulletin the Browser, "might with profit appear editorially at the end of all remarks from the political platform and the pulpit."

How about that