Spanq? Quirigram?? Interroflip??? Curioso????
What should we call the upside-down question mark that precedes questions in Spanish? That's the question posed by a name-that-punctuation contest at Emdashes. It wraps up midnight tonight (PT), so there's still time to enter, no questions asked.
Comments
"Veronica."
I just like that name.
Posted by: Rasselas | August 25, 2008 3:05 PM
Santorum
Posted by: Rubrick | August 25, 2008 3:14 PM
I just suggested calling it the "splainu" in honor of Ricky Ricardo.
Posted by: therblig | August 25, 2008 3:18 PM
Santorum--isn't that when something else has been upside-down?
Posted by: David F | August 25, 2008 3:38 PM
What most people don't know (or never took the time to notice) is that the period that ends a declarative sentence in Spanish is also upside down (see below).
English .
Espaņol .
Posted by: El Bored @ Work | August 25, 2008 5:41 PM
How about "left query"? Not as though we don't distinguish between left quotes and right, at least in formal print.
I bet the Spaniards actually already have a term for it. Why not check? In HTML, it's "& iquest" (without the space).
Posted by: Theophylact | August 25, 2008 6:26 PM
The "fish hook". Because it looks like a fish hook.
Posted by: Deborah | August 25, 2008 6:55 PM
So then we'd call a standard question mark an "upside-down fish hook"?
Posted by: David F | August 25, 2008 10:37 PM
"Get-bent-erisk" because who are we to name the punctuation of others?
Posted by: TG Gibbon | August 26, 2008 9:59 AM
English needs a new punctuation mark for a statement that ends in upward inflection but is not a question. And it shall be called the Interroflop.
Posted by: J.D. | August 29, 2008 6:36 AM