Little-known (but highly useful) punctuation marks

I spend a lot of time trolling the internet for grammar jokes, memes, and interesting facts. (I’m already married, so I don’t need to worry about scaring away any potential suitors with that remark.) I am aware that many people don’t find grammar, spelling, and punctuation humorous, but every once in a while someone comes up with a great meme using homonyms or misplaced commas that everyone can relate to and–dare I say–chuckle at.

Today, however, I discovered something that had me scrambling to CTRL + right click: an infographic on mentalfloss.com depicting several little-known punctuation marks that, once you’ve seen them, you’ll wonder how you’ve been posting on social media all this time without them. While there are one or two marks that require a bit of HTML or Unicode knowledge, each mark does have an “If all else fails” workaround. Note: I am not condoning the use of these marks in any formal writing (do not, under any circumstances, use the certitude or authority point in a cover letter for a job application, no matter how much of an expert you are in your field). But if you’re looking to lighten up a tweet, or an informal email to your colleague, give one of these unusual punctuation marks a try. You can bet people will ask you “How did you do that‽”

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