"The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath."
- Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
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Because English needs to be more complex
What we really need is a format option for backwards italics (sartalics) instead of a stupid proprietary font.
are you envisioning it as a lighter exlamation, question ??
It's just an exclamation or question mark combined with the purpose of a semicolon; Not quite ending a sentence, but also changing the tone midway through. It's situational, but I'd absolutely find it useful.
ok I think I get it. seems as valid as using double question marks or exclamation marks which is kinda common.
They are already invented: 😱 and 😱😱😱
Kinda like this sentence?; because it starts off as a question, but I explain it afterwards with a statement.
¿Perhaps something like this: 
?
Exactly this. If you know what a semicolon and question mark/exclamation point's purpose is, then you know how this punctuation works. The best tool is that which requires no manual at all. Occam's Razor, or something along those lines.
¡It's immediately, perfectly understandable! :k
Out of all the additions to punctuation I've seen this is the one I find myself needing most often. Interrobangs are easily written as "?!" and even most other ones can be quick fixed with storytelling like "said lovingly", "said with authority" and whatnot.
But "Is that the best, or is it just what we have?" is an absolutely horrible thing to write punctuation for when you mean it as two connected questions like "Is that the best? Or is it just what we have?"
It should obviously be replaced with a question comma. There are so many cases where you also have the question in the middle of the sentence such as "Is that okay (question comma) because I don't think so..."
I've thought the same thing many times. I love interrobang (not least of which for it's kickass name), but the same sentiment can be expressed in other ways. Dialogue can convey the others, but if you want to recreate the way humans actually speak English, you need a mid sentence punctuation, like a comma, that can express questioning. Even in speech, we change our intonation to be higher when questioning, and we do that sometimes in the middle of a sentence. It's just not conveyable perfectly with our current set of symbols.
Italics
Have you tried handwriting italics? It's not fun.
Switch from block letters to cursive, or vice versa. Or all capitals. Anything that shows a difference.
That's when you underline.
And if you're using software that doesn't support formatting?
You just said you were handwriting.
Emphasis isn't always possible with every utility, but a simple Unicode addition would work well for a variety of software, as well as be easy and readable on paper compared to underlines (especially if there're words below). It's also more accessible if you can't draw straight lines to save your life. Like me.
I often see this accomplished with dashed interjections - dashes! can you believe that? - as a way to break up a sentence while still continuing with a single train of thought. But I always support the invention of new punctuation, how long has it been since we got any? We're well overdue.
Is the interrobang not enough for you‽
¡I love the interrobang! But I feel like we need more than just that. ⸘Would it not be fantastic to know the tone of a sentence from the beginning‽
Also, I believe what OP is looking for is something like this image. Sadly, I can't find a keyboard with them, or a copy/pastable line where they've been typed. 
Would also be useful mixed with the interrobang. The backwards question mark "⸮" is also often used for rhetorical questions. But it's sometimes replaced with ❓because it's easier to type on a phone. ❗Is sometimes used for sarcastic enthusiasm, too, instead of the "official" sarcmark with is apparently copywrited and difficult to parse because it's all swirly and weird, whereas the big red ❗ or ❓ is way more obviously out of place and meant to be noticed, like sarcasm or a rhetorical question.
This is English good sir or madam as the case may be. If you want pre-sentence punctuation you'll have to switch to Spanish or similar. Thank you.
¡Be the change you want to see in the language! We owe ourselves that much, ¿do we not?
I can't find a keyboard with them, or a copy/pastable line where they've been typed
Maybe use combining diacritical marks?
I'm using 0x326 (Combining Comma Below), but you may need the CGJ in there to render correctly in all contexts
e.g.
Foo!̦ Bar?̦
Edit: Combining grapheme joiner, not zero width joiner
I'm not techy enough to know if that's something I can do on my android or not. Lol. I never use the laptop for anything other than school.
Ah yeah I don't know how I would do that easily on a phone. Do those in my example above render for you? You should probably be able to just copy/paste them on a phone if they do.
I always enjoy a good interrobang before bed
We're both talking about the same thing right?
Writing is as much a form of stylistic expression as any other medium.
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