Irony punctuation is any form of notation proposed or used to denote irony or sarcasm in text. Written text, in English and other languages, lacks a standard way to mark irony, and several forms of punctuation have been proposed to fill the gap. The oldest is the percontation point in the form of a reversed question mark (), proposed by English printer Henry Denham in the 1580s for marking rhetorical questions, which can be a form of irony. Specific irony marks have also been proposed, such as in the form of an open upward arrow (△|), used by Marcellin Jobard in the 19th century, and in a form resembling a reversed question mark (), proposed by French poet Alcanter de Brahm during the 19th century.
Irony punctuation is primarily used to indicate that a sentence should be understood at a second level. A bracketed exclamation point or question mark as well as scare quotes are also occasionally used to express irony or sarcasm.
Percontation point
The percontation point
, a reversed question mark later referred to as a rhetorical question mark, was proposed by Henry Denham in the 1580s and was used at the end of a question that does not require an answer—a rhetorical question. Its use died out in the 17th century. This character can be represented using the reversed question mark (⸮) found in Unicode as U+2E2E; another character approximating it is the Arabic question mark (؟), U+061F.
The modern question mark (? U+003F) is descended from the "punctus interrogativus" (described as "a lightning flash, striking from right to left"), but unlike the modern question mark, the punctus interrogativus may be contrasted with the punctus percontativus—the former marking questions that require an answer while the latter marks rhetorical questions.
Irony mark
In 1668, John Wilkins, in An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, proposed using an inverted exclamation mark to punctuate rhetorical questions.
In an article dated 11 October 1841, Marcellin Jobard, a Belgian newspaper publisher, introduced an "irony mark" () in the shape of an oversized arrow head with small stem (rather like an ideogram of a Christmas tree). The next year he expanded his idea, suggesting the symbol could be used in various orientations (on its side, upside down, etc.) to mark "a point of irritation, an indignation point, a point of hesitation".
Another irony point () was proposed by the French poet Alcanter de Brahm (alias, Marcel Bernhardt) in his 1899 book to indicate that a sentence should be understood at a second level (irony, sarcasm, etc.). It is illustrated by a glyph resembling, but not identical to, a small, elevated, backward-facing question mark.
Hervé Bazin, in his essay "" ("Let's pluck the bird", 1966), used the Greek letter ψ with a dot below for the same purpose . In the same work, the author proposed five other innovative punctuation marks: the "doubt point" , "conviction point" , "acclamation point" , "authority point" , and "love point" .
In March 2007, the Dutch foundation CPNB () presented another design of an irony mark, the : ().
Reverse italics (Sartalics) Tom Driberg recommended that ironic statements should be printed in italics that lean the other way from conventional italics, also called Sartalics.
Scare quotes
Scare quotes are a particular use of quotation marks. They are placed around a word or phrase to indicate that it is not used in the fashion that the writer would personally use it. In contrast to the nominal typographic purpose of quotation marks, the enclosed words are not necessarily quoted from another source. When read aloud, various techniques are used to convey the sense, such as prepending the addition of "so-called" or a similar word or phrase of disdain, using a sarcastic or mocking tone, or using air quotes, or any combination of the above.
Temherte slaqî
In certain Ethiopic languages, sarcasm and unreal phrases are indicated at the end of a sentence with a sarcasm mark called temherte slaqî or temherte slaq, a character that looks like the inverted exclamation point (U+00A1) ( ¡ ).
Other typography
Rhetorical questions in some informal situations can use a bracketed question mark, e.g., "Oh, really[?]". The equivalent for an ironic or sarcastic statement would be a bracketed exclamation mark, e.g., "Oh, really[!]". Subtitles, such as in Teletext, sometimes use an exclamation mark within brackets or parentheses to mark sarcasm.