Section sign
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| Punctuation |
|---|
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apostrophe ( ', ’ ) |
| Interword separation |
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spaces ( ) ( ) ( ) |
| General typography |
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ampersand ( & ) |
| Uncommon typography |
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asterism ( ⁂ ) |
The section sign (§; Unicode U+00A7, HTML entity §) is a typographical character used mainly to refer to a particular section of a document, such as a legal code. It is frequently used along with the pilcrow (¶), or paragraph sign. When duplicated, as §§, it is read as the plural "sections" (§§ 13–21), much as "pp." (pages) is the plural of "p." (page). The sign itself is supposed to have developed from the Hebrew letter gimel (ג) [citation needed]. Its usage was similar to paragraphos.
Like the dagger (†) and double dagger (‡), it is also sometimes used to link to a footnote where the asterisk (*) is already in use on a given page; however, these usages are declining in favour of numbered footnotes, usually linked by a superscripted (or, decreasingly, [square bracketed]) number.
[edit] Popular usage
- It is also used to represent a type specimen in animals.
- A section in the United States Code.
- Many Maxis games, from SimCity 3000 onwards, including The Sims, The Sims Online, and The Sims 2, use this symbol (with an unusually small loop) to represent the unit of currency in the SimNation, the simoleon.
- John Cook uses this symbol as a decoration or design element in many of his Sev Wide Web comics.
- In Poland, the section sign is commonly associated with concept of law and justice. It is commonly displayed on covers of legal books, especially those concerning criminal law. The section sign is also shown on badges of the crime investigation specialty of the Polish police.
- Similarly, in Danish and German, the section sign is used nearly exclusively to refer to articles of legal codes, and hence associated likewise with law and legal matters. (In this usage, it is typically read "paragraph" rather than "section".)
[edit] Typing the section sign
- Mac OS 9: Option + 6
- Mac OS X: Option + 6
- Microsoft Windows with numeric keypad: Alt + 0167; Alt + 789; Alt + 21 (on numeric keypad)
- Microsoft Windows with an international keyboard: AltGr + Shift + S
- X Window System, with a Compose Key, Compose + s + o
