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If I Were King of the Internet, I Would Mandate the Percontation Point⸮
Satire. Irony. Sarcasm. The written word seldom conveys these things well enough to tell them from someone’s making a serious statement or proposal. (This has even been codified and is now known as Poe’s Law.) Distinguishing serious from ironic is a very old problem, and one that was solved in about 1580. It was in that decade that Henry Denham, an English printer, came up with a solution. His idea was to have a new mark of punctuation that would distinguish when someone was not serious. That mark was the percontation point, and it looked like this: ⸮.
Thus, were I the King of the Internet, you would be mandated to use the percontation point⸮ It would probably be the only punctuation available to such publications as The Onion or The Babylon Bee. And maybe some mistakes would no longer be made:
Libs unironically sharing the @TheBabylonBee article about NBA players wearing lace collars is pretty funny pic.twitter.com/YotaShvRdM
— Kyle Mann (@The_Kyle_Mann) September 23, 2020
Are there any interesting marks of punctuation, real or proposed, that you have come across? If you were King (or Queen or Pony Princess, whatever) of the Internet, what rules would you impose?
Published in Group Writing
They’re Leftists. We already knew they are gullible.
I just make my remarks. If people understand, great! If they don’t, that’s OK, too.
The Singularity has been reached. Satire and Reality are one.
So it seems. I am trying to bring us back from the brink.
A futile task.
Especially with the number of people pushing us over in the other direction.
This is part of the Group Writing project for September. October will be even more fun with the writing prompt of: It was a dark and stormy night…
When one attempts satire and mockery, but this is misread as an aspirational goal by those one is attempting to mock, one is missing the target. Humor at its most noble takes the wind out of our overpuffed sails – it is a corrective and a brake on our passions. But it requires at least a modicum of humility to be present in the target. The nihilists on the Left have largely stripped themselves of this.
Satire or clairvoyant?
Delicious.
Perhaps, but not at the expense of 60 million lost souls.
Mama don’t want no promiscuous percontation ’round here.
No, no, no … it goes Mama don’t allow no promiscuous percontation around here.
Okay … four for nothing. Arahant, come in at the bridge …
Mama don’t allow no promiscuous percontation around here
Mama don’t allow no promiscuous percontation around here
We don’t care what Mama don’t allow
We gonna promicuously percontinate anyhow
Mama don’t allow no promiscuous percontation around here
This is why I keep you around. You take an almost funny post of mine and make it hilarious.
Old song.
Wouldn’t such a mark give up the game? Satire works best when the reader gradually understands that he’s been taken in.
Apparently not, Kent. Some people still wouldn’t get it.
Make Gopher Great Again. Actually, I don’t remember much about it and only used it a few times. I do remember fingering Coke machines.
😨
Interesting how definitions change over time. From Wikipedia:
“Prior to the finger program, the only way to get this information was with a who program that showed IDs and terminal line numbers (the server’s internal number of the communication line, over which the user’s terminal is connected) for logged-in users. Earnest named his program after the idea that people would run their fingers down the who list to find what they were looking for.
The term “finger” had, in the 1970s, a connotation of “to snitch”: this made “finger” a good reminder/mnemonic to the semantic of the UNIX finger command (a client in the protocol context).”
The Beatles knew of that other meaning with their Penny Lane lyrics so it was around at some level.
Half the enjoyment of sarcasm, irony, and satire is the subsequent mocking of those who don’t get it. But hey, your punctuation proposal was like totally brilliant and awesome ⸮.
I could not find a Percontation Point in Word’s directory of symbols to be inserted. But I found this: ‽
(It is a combined exclamation point and question mark.)
I think that’s called an interrobang.
Hey, man. You stymied me with your interrabangabong, Or whatever.
What’s not best about that?
The role of king is usually hereditary. Tell us more about your children, Arahant. If your situation is like that of George Washington, would there be a peaceful transfer of power when your term is up?
What is the cat’s position on the percontation point?
It’s too sharp and pointy to sleep on.