Talk:Irony mark

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An entry from Irony mark appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 4 April 2006.

The following user(s) are actively involved with this article and may be able to help with questions about verification and sources: User:Choz Cunningham This in no way implies article ownership; all editors are encouraged to contribute.

Contents 1 Contemporary Discussion 2 Examples are sarcastic, not ironic? 2.1 Jokes 3 Dumb Francs 4 Interrobang‽ 5 Alternatives 6 Percontation (← Reinventing the wheel) 7 Revert 7.1 Unrevert 7.2 Templates added 8 Why the differnt shape for the love mark (or point d'amour)? 9 Snigger point 10 Synonym

[edit] Contemporary Discussion

I have just started a discussion on Typophile.com, a forum for text-using graphic designers and type designers (who construct fonts), suggesting an alternate design, broader applicationn and method of painless implementation for the irony mark. I also include my reasoning for it's advocation, and for the purpose of my proposed design. In the thread, I actually propose it's use for not only for irony, but also as a sarcasm mark and to reveal false subtlety or innuendo, and any other application where the missiing verbal intonation might have clarified a commentsd contradictory meaning. I suggest calling the collective uses all the irony mark, to both keep things simple and because Irony is not only the most umbrella-like term, but can legitimately be other things besides an explicit contradiction to expected circumstances.

Feel free to drop on by and take a look there, http://typophile.com/node/28817 or at my suggessted design guide and examples at http://www.exclamachine.com/snark

--Choz 22:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples are sarcastic, not ironic?

• That speech was not boring at all
• It truly is a beautiful work of art
• The cheque is in the mail
• The Irony Mark is an excellent invention by the French

I don't see them as ironic, well except perhaps the cheque one- I didn't get that one. To me they all read as sarcasm/snide remarks.

I see your point, but this is how I understand the whole irony thing:

1. sarcasm is indeed a type of verbal irony.
2. The statements are not necessarily sarcastic. A visitor to an art exhibition could be saying the second statement to the artist to be polite, while other visitors are aware of the speaker's true oponion (i.e. the speaker means something other than what is said, and a second audience is aware of the real meaning).

(NB, the last statement was added briefly by a new editor, and was promply removed as unencyclopedic by another editor).

I hope that clarifies that, but if you can think of more illustrative examples, it'd be nice to see them too. Rod ESQ 05:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

In my experience, a sarcasm mark would prove itself more useful than an irony mark, though perhaps the irony mark might get used as a sarcasm mark as well. Sarcasm is so very hard to get across well, and especially in text. 137.238.69.130 23:30, 14 May 2006 (UTC)Tchalvak

Sarcasm is very hard to get across well`~` Froggo Zijgeb 06:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jokes

• If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular
• I'd give you a taste but your tongue's in the stew

Now it's worse, these sentences are jokes not irony!! Irony is when you say the opposite of what you think to show that it can't be right. -Sucrine ( ><> talk) 20:10, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Irony is also using a word for something other than its literal meaning, which would account for the first statement. And the second statement is actually situational irony(giving someone a taste of something when they have no tongue would be pointless) and the use of the word taste is subtly ironic in itself. While I agree that jokes are not necessarily appropriate in an encyclopedia article, your definition of irony is narrow. --Shadowdrak 22:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dumb Francs

• irony: what*
• sarcasm: Exactly,
• doubt: huh..?
• certainty: same as indication
• acclamation: ~hey!
• authority: :no.
• indignation/declamation: whatever¡
• love (shut up)

Solvati. Also see the undoing of the Snark (.~) with my notes at http://typophile.com/node/28817?from=50&comments_per_page=50#comment-164282. -lysdexia 20:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interrobang‽

The 4th example image is wrong -- it is clearly an interrobang.

[edit] Alternatives

I don't know if it's worth noting, but here in the UK, bracketed exclamation marks are used on TV subtitles to indicate sarcasm:

Oh, that's just perfect(!)

David 13:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

What if the sarcasm is too calm to use an exclamation mark? OrangeAipom (talk) 02:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Percontation (← Reinventing the wheel)

I've only just found this page, but I find it misconceived. The new 'irony mark' will sink or swim as readers will, but the reversed question-mark first appears (to the best of my knowledge) in the late C16, where it functions as a punctus percontativus, indicating what it Latin would be called a percontation, as distinct from the punctus interrogativus, our standard question-mark, indicating an interrogation. It can be found in print in Gilbie's edition of the Psalms and in MS in (among others) the hand of Ralph Crane, who provided copy for several texts in Shakespeare's First Folio. For details see the magisterial and seminal work by M. B. Parkes, Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Scolar Press, 1992).

In Latin the distinction of questions is fairly strict: an interrogation (from rogare, the root of pro/rogation) demands the answer yes or no, whereas a percontation (from roots embodying the idea of sounding unknown water with a pole) doesn't. 'Did you do it?' is interrogative, 'Why did you do it?[but reverse that mark]' is a percontative. Latin has at least two other verbs of enquiry, quaestio and scisitare; English isn't exactly poor in them, but relies heavily on 'question' and 'interrogate' + Germanic 'ask', and isn't always very clear on the distinctions. The problem is exposed if one points out that the percontations Gilbie and others marked might also in English be called 'rhetorical questions'--a phrase whose own inadequacies (deliberately) blur, for example, any distinction between a question not meant to be answered and one that cannot be answered, or cannot be answered in time or in a particular context : in any of which cases 'irony' might supervene. And people don't use marks they don't clearly understand: look at the ebb of the semi-colon.

Practically speaking, the reason the percontation-mark didn't catch on, nor the French irony-mark cited at the beginning of the page under discussion, is simply that it required a new piece of type. The inverted Spanish initial question-mark, by contrast, may have been mandated by the Real Academia Espanola in 1754, but they could have mandated all they liked if it had not been possible to set the 'new' mark simply by using an inverted piece of existing type. The percontation-mark, being reversed rather than inverted, cannot be so type-set. I suspect myself that wrong-fount question-marks (esp. in blackletter) may sometimes have been used, but historically it's clear that while some were cast for particular printers, the extra expense + lack of obvious English rationale, did for it. True, the financial-pragmatic problem is now side-stepped, and with laser printers etc. all bets are off as far as the evolution of punctuation is concerned. But as far as really establishing such a mark goes ...

--John.C.Lennard 00:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

See [1], among others. — DIV (128.250.204.118 07:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Revert

A recent manual edit removed all information regarding speculation on the rarity of the irony mark, and all information about it's redesigns in 2006-07. This latter information is relevant and if not of high enough standard, should be rewritten, given citations and improved, not deleted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Reverting#When_to_revert

Lets all assume good faith and work together to make this a better article.

Please, everyone, this article feels roughly sewn together, but making it shorter is not the solution. --Choz 02:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It was tagged with an original research warning for quite a while. Nothing happened. Please read WP:V#Burden of evidence. That explains that uncited material can be removed. Certainly speculation must be cited. Nobody is assuming bad faith, but sometimes removing unverified information is the correct action. If you wish to re-add the material with citations, I encourage you to do it. But unverified speculation does not belong on Wikipedia. --Eyrian 02:35, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I have now read Section 3: Usage was tagged for original research or unverified claims. I am incline to agree that it is speculative. Sections 5 had no notice. Section 6 no notice and two citations.

Aside from that, the encouragement to simply remove things that are not cited, rather than tag them, is specifically regarding statements of dubious truth. Both the new designs come up on the first page of Google or Yahoo when searching for 'irony mark". In the preceding paragraph of Burdon of Evidence, three methods are described for noting what you would like to see cited. However, Section 6 was well cited, but you have removed the information twice. In fact, this second revert happened as I was adding additional citations to this and other articles you have chosen to delete portions of with out discussion. Those now have citations as well.

Please, keep in mind the revert guide's suggestion, "Do not simply revert changes that are made as part of a dispute. Be respectful to other editors, their contributions and their points of view." If you feel that a edit is order, please discuss it here, on the talk page, where other interested parties can join.

--Choz 03:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Just because you can Google something doesn't mean the result will be a reliable source, or imply any kind of notability. Sections 5 and 6 were based entirely on self-published assertions of importance, which simply doesn't matter. They were describing similar marks created by redlinked institutions/individuals, with no reliable sources (again, self-published doesn't count) for citations. --Eyrian 03:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

You ignore that neither section had any request for citations yet. You still do not tag or discuss anything before you remove it, as appears is your habit often, despite that being best practice. Why not improve the article by including anything about the resurgence of redesigns? I find "redlinks" alone a poor criterion and "quite a while" a bit vague.--Choz 12:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Vague? Very well, how about three months? That's not just some "I wasn't looking at the article that day"; it's a pattern of poor quality. My previous actions depend on the quality of what's missing. I did, in fact, try to look for some real citations for the new attempts at marks. There were no reliable sources that came up. No, I didn't do a massive search, but that's not my responsibility. It was not cited to reliable sources; that's enough. The reason I brought up redlinks is that if either of those two sections has a blue link (Cunningham or the Dutch Foundation Collective Propaganda), then I could've looked at those for other sources and assertions of importance. Articles are not improved by adding random unsourced information. --Eyrian 18:14, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, that note was only about one section, but ...whatever. It is everyones responsibility. There is still lots of unsourced info, just as there was months ago (the last time the page looked this sparse). I mean, even the credited inventor is a bunch of redlinks with no citations, so I am not impressed with your agenda. For now, I am waiting and watching to see where the community decides to go with this article. If everyone else wants to take and expand on what is now in the history, it is there for them to play with. I think the article needs a detailed, caring total rewrite, and will be available to help as I can.--Choz 04:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It sounds as though User Choz is actually involved in development of this punctuation concept, and as such I wonder whether something like the guidelines under "Using the subject as a self-published source" applies. —DIV (128.250.204.118 08:55, 24 July 2007 (UTC))

Indeed, I was involved, along with others, in the development of one English language verbal irony mark, and work now to promote adoption in the typographic community. I am a type designer, and my server hosts thesnark.org. This close interest, while it leaves me knowledgeable on the subject, may make my voice too close to "original" for the comfort of some wikipedians. I do not attempt to either hide my interest in the topic (it is linked from my homepage), nor hammer the point home repeatedly (that is annoying). In my opinion, the details I have listed are as non-contentious, factual, not overly self-serving and relevant to the article's topic as I can possibly make them. I assumed that if they needed improvement, the usually healthy mode of a wiki would resolve it. Now, it has evolved into a flip-flop situation. Revert wars are not good for any of us. I was taking a wait-and-see approach to this article, but now am going to ask for a rewrite, and hope that other punctuation fans and experts come to work on the article. If anyone here knows how to promote that, please do so.

When considering the English and Danish irony marks, the actual notability of the somewhat obscure French mark (that the article currently centers on) should perhaps be considered. For example, there are no citations for the point d'ironie's historical section. As far as I know, there is no English language references to the French mark (aside from a recent addition of a potentially coincidental resemblance to historical marks in Old English and Latin scripts), nor any potential English language references at all. Considering all of this, I wonder what the threshold is for notability in an article on such an obscure topic; is it the same as for more general topics, like cats or pizza? Should it have the same broad standard for citation? Even more drastic, is the world better served by removing this article completely from the English Wikipedia?

If the article deserves to exist, I cannot see how an un-sourced reference to the French (and Ethiopian) incarnations are encyclopedic, but even a mention of the contemporary English or Dutch versions, with "weak" citations is completely inappropriate. I feel this article should exist, so lets make it better!--Choz 22:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unrevert

I've reinstated the majority (not all) of the previous content that had been added over time and built this article up into something useful.
Although there has ostensibly been a debate here about whether statements have been cited, or constitute original research, I can't help thinking that the reversion was an example of overzealous editing (not uncommon enough on WP).
The justification is simple: the statements are not "original research" or "uncited claims", rather they are "common sense" or "obvious from our everyday experience". By way of example, consider an article on cows: there is no justification for deleting text that states that cows are the largest supplier of milk for human consumption, or that they eat grass, or that they have four-chambered stomachs. Yet the reversion carried on at this article is basically equivalent. Sure such citations might be nice, but they cannot be considered essential.
—DIV (128.250.204.118 08:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC))

You're quite wrong. Please read WP:V for a start. There is no evidence of the importance of the marks listed there, and it's quite unacceptable to retore material dependent on self-published sources. --Eyrian 08:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

He is not purely wrong. By the first pillar, not only is "no original research" important, but so is "accuracy". Very important. This requires a trade-off sometimes, and that is why "Wikipedia has no firm rules". DIV has valid points, and each person interested here should involve themselves in improving the article. Whether or not anyone else ever writes a book about it, there are newer, relevant designs of the irony mark. That, at least, is a fact.--Choz 22:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Accuracy can only be ensured by using reliable sources. Things need to be verifiable. That's simply nonnegotiable. This isn't rule creep, it's a fundamental principle of Wikipedia. --Eyrian 01:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Then verify. For example, I am a type designer, and know that some typefaces include a different form of the irony mark. From myfonts.com to openfontlibrary.org there are fonts that include that mark. Some created by me, some by others. No one on Earth (aside from me) currently documents this, because the files are simply there to look at or download. Res ipsa loquitur. Regardless of who puts the material in this article, deleting any mention of what Underware, !Exclamachine and other contemporary type designers are doing is making the article more inaccurate. Perhaps this should be reviewed by other editors. Are you capable of bringing this to the attention of others?

--Choz 19:11, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest filing a request for comment. Again, reliable sources need to be cited. I'm not a typographer; I don't even know where to look. --Eyrian 19:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Choz ...I'm not wrong ;-p

I have skimmed through WP:V for a start. If the article states that the snark glyph was proposed, and this is backed up by an archived discussion page, then the statement is verified. Sure, if the article were to claim that the snark glyph has already been adopted by major publishers, then additional references would be required ...but the article did not make such claims.

I also find it disagreeable for entire sections to be deleted. Did you really have a problem with everything that was removed, or was that just easier for you, Eyrian?

—DIV (128.250.204.118 07:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Templates added

I have added a request for experts to this page and for a rewrite to the article itself. Lets hope things get better. I have listed myself as a maintainer, and I believe I can be contacted (emailed) from my user page. However, I welcome discussion here first. My wiki-coding skills are minimal. In late August, I will attempt, with the aid of machine translation, to make an English language version of the article discussing the history of the irony mark. If anyone is fluent in French, they are welcome to take over that task, and I will host it.--Choz 23:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why the differnt shape for the love mark (or point d'amour)?

Was () not the correct shape? I appreciate that it is a jpg, but the svg is wholly different (), not nearly as circular, and looks to be different at the bottom. Is the jpg shape just as correct to use, was the only problem that the jpg image is of lower quality? I've been using the jpg shape quite a lot when writing recently; I'd hate to think that it wasn't correct! Thank you very much. 82.27.19.89 18:48, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't answer your question, but observe that in one the point sits below the heart, while in the other it is part of the heart shape. I would also suggest that the marks are rendered in a 'handwritten' style (to me), so that perhaps an extra degree of lattitude would be allowed in terms of the details of the shape.

—DIV (128.250.204.118 07:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Snigger point

"In 1912, the writer Ambrose Bierce proposed a new punctuation device called a “snigger point,” a smiling face represented by \__/!, to connote jocularity."
excerpted from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/fashion/29emoticon.htm?pagewanted=2&_r=1 ((-: Just Between You and Me ;-)), emphasis added.
—DIV (128.250.204.118 07:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Synonym

Isn't that the purpose of the double exclamation point?

 ‼ → ‼

--Belg4mit (talk) 19:14, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not mentioned at !!, where a couple of other uses are given. No suggestions in [2]. —DIV (128.250.80.15 (talk) 09:28, 26 May 2008 (UTC))