Template talk:Punctuation marks

Math characters

Do simple math characters count as punctuation? I guess not in general, or every math character would. But in things like "−6 degrees", "±12 dB", do the minus and plus-or-minus count as punctuation? Should it just remain a type of dash? Do things like degree marks count ("32°")? - Omegatron 19:34, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)

I consider them more of an elaborate notation than punctuation. - Woo d row 19:37, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

How about Interpunct? Bullet? I think minus should still be shown, since it is a type of dash and they get confusing, even if other similar math or notation things should not. - Omegatron 21:29, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)

Non-standard marks

I think we should remove punctuation marks that are nonstandard to English, such as the interrobang. And maybe limit the examples of quotation marks to the English ones, at least to simplify the template.--Sonjaaa 22:11, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)

I concur. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)} 00:18, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

I also concur. The odd characters are now listed below in "Uncommon typography" —Down10 ^TACO 07:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

now Validating

Looks like I wasn't wrong about unnecessary quote around number in HTML. But we're using XHTML here, duh. Well anyway, it now validates as valid XHTML 1.0 [1]

BTW, does anyone know how-to remove the spaces at the top of each page? or is that something that the developer will have to fix?

mediawiki reprocesses everything anyway so quotes or no quotes round the numbers in the wiki markup makes no difference to the output xhtml. Plugwash 17:43, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Strange interwiki

Hi,

There's a strange interwiki in the template. I have no idea why it's there, but now I've put it in <noinclude></noinclude> to give it just a little meaning.

--Morten Barklund 17:13, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

bolding

I don't think the punctuation marks should be bolded, because it screws up their display by turning the smaller font into just a blurry, blocky mess for some characters, especially the paragraph mark and @ sign. Night Gyr 01:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree; it does make it muddy. MeekMark 14:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I made everything bigger to try to reduce this problem. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 04:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

title and style on Interword separation

How about a span for the spaces, to allow title= with a description? Like this:

( ) ( ) ( )

which looks like this (hover over the spaces for a tooltip):

( ) ( ) ( )

And maybe even a border around them (one possible style shown):

(   ) ( &ensp; ) ( &emsp; )

Renders as:

( ) ( ) ( ) MeekMark 22:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Yup, I refuse to consider the second solution :) As to the first one, I don't have a strong opinion, but... it is inconsistent with all the rest. Why do you think we need a tooltip on the spaces and not on the other characters? In particular why not on dashes? (Oh, and BTW the   is not meant to represent a   but a normal space; of course I couldn't have used a normal space in the HTML code) —Gennaro Prota ^•Talk 21:11, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
No problem; the decoration does kinda get in the way. The main reason for the tool tip was for those that wondered, "Hey, I wonder what the differences are in those spaces?" and also for screen reader programs. But your point why not the rest is valid too; so unless someone else besides me sees some value, I'll leave well enough alone. MeekMark 22:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, don't give up so early :) I hadn't considered screen readers, and you raise a good point. I'm not an expert in this field, so I ask you: is there any way other than tooltips to make screen readers "decipher" the spaces with their correct name? I'm not against the tooltip if it increases the infobox accessibility. I just would like an alternative to avoid inconsistencies with the other rows. Otherwise I lean towards the tooltip, as the accessibility benefit greatly outweighs the inconsistency issue, IMHO. —Gennaro Prota ^•Talk 11:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Percent symbol

Does anyone else think that the % symbol should be added under general typography? Max naylor 20:58, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... good question. Actually, there are also the "Per mille sign" (‰) and the "Per ten thousand sign" (‱), which are in the Unicode general punctuation range (see http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2000.pdf). If there are no significant objections in a few days I'll add them. —Gennaro Prota ^•Talk 21:27, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

the umlaut

I added the diaresis, but now I'm not sure I ought to have; should it only be in Template:diacritical marks instead? As perhaps should any other "combining mark" (as designated by Unicode? --moof 00:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I suspect both dieresis and guillemets were discussed before and intentionally excluded, but I was not here when discussion took place. Let's see what others have to say. —Gennaro Prota ^•Talk 01:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify why I think so: the whole box seems deliberately English-oriented, and guillemets are rarely used in English (the article about quotation marks seems also to strongly state they are "foreign language" symbols); as to the dieresis I guess, as you suppose too, it belongs to {{diacritical marks}}. —Gennaro Prota ^•Talk 01:23, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Support deletion of umlaut/diaeresis. It's a diacritical mark, and it is already in the Template:diacritical marks where it belongs. (For now, I just changed spelling diaresis -> diaeresis.) – Adhemar 08:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed on deletion. It's a diacritical mark, and not in the same topic of punctuation or typography. —Down10 ^TACO 07:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Octothorp

octothorp ( #)

My contributionLudvikus 14:43, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Reference:

    octothorp \ak-te-thorp, -to-\ noun [octo- + thorp, of unknown origin; fr. the eight
    points on its circumference] (1971): the symbol #
    
    (C) 1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

I've reverted that change. Octothorp is a too-obscure alternative name, not widely accepted. Dicklyon 16:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Interpunct

Interpunct was shown under punctuation but, as my son Ted just pointed out, the page for interpunct clearly states this is used for interword separation and so it should sit with Spaces in the existing "interword separation" section. Ted is just 10 years old.

Reference mark

The link to Reference mark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_mark) is diverting to Japanese typographic symbols. Is there any logic to this?

Too big

The template list is too long, especially on some stub typography articles. Could we possibly add a [show] [hide] function? --Spe bi 08:53, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Symbol in template?

Many symbol pages have the symbol in question displayed in different ways... what about having them all included in the template.. example User talk:Yzmo/punctest That would make it look better ^talk 15:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

the same sign

apostrophe ( ->’<- ' )
quotation marks ( ‘ ->’<-, “ ” )

are the same, what's what. Chandler talk 01:57, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Trimming the Fat

This list is indeed getting too long. To help, I removed some poor examples: "Dele" & "Emoticons".

The dele symbol isn't even used in typography, it's a manual mark for proofreading, and is almost always handwritten. So it shouldn't be in this list, but instead in Template:Proofreading marks.

Emoticons technically uses type as an expression, but since they doesn't function as punctuation (in any formal sense) nor as a singular type symbols, they doesn't belong here. The example ("☻") is a really tiny "smiley face" (though it looked just like a big black dot on my screen, at that size), but it's not a proper instance of a type symbol. Please let this list serve as an index to typography in regular usage, lest you feel that every dingbat that has been added to Unicode should be added to this template. [insert frowny face here] —Down10 ^TACO 06:01, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Typeface for blown-up symbols

With the current template, the various symbols are shown in what I consider to be not the best archetypical shapes; for example, the full stop comes out as a square. I propose to have the blown-up symbols rendered in the Times font family, so that it is more like a circle. Objections? --Lambiam 10:11, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I have made the change. --Lambiam 13:11, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Squid Apostrophe?

The individually-linked words don't seem to go anywhere relevant, and I couldn't find any valid meaning for the two combined. Raines (talk) 08:25, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

"Splutter marks"

These are a pair of marks used in DC comics and elsewhere to indicate gasps, coughs, etc. They resemble skinny right and left arrows that have been separated into their component lines. I have been unable to find any reference to them anywhere, so "splutter marks" is my own name for them. Does anyone know what they are called? I reckon they must count as punctuation marks in use, but, as I mention, I can find not reference to them at all.

November1925 (talk) 12:39, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Possibly here?

Western Signs and Ideograms

There are several books out these days on signs and symbols used in Comic Books. The above happens to be online.

KA-BOOM! A Dictionary of Comic Book Words, Symbols & Onomatopoeia

The above title is sold through Amazon.com and elsewhere.

The splutters usually represent sweat (hot or cold) or strong emotion. A similar symbol replaces the teardrop shapes with straight lines (either easier to draw or focusing on the emotional affect rather than physical manifestations -- they're remarkably flexible) which can surround either characters or words.

Lee-Anne (talk) 00:09, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Width

This box seems to have become unreasonably wide. Compare the old version here with the current version here. Any chance someone who understands the formatting intricacies could put it back to a more reasonable and space-efficient width? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.110.189 (talk) 03:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Since there haven't been any comments I have done what seems best to me. I think that making the box a reasonable width to fit down the right-hand side of articles is more important than including some of the alternative descriptions, so I have removed them. I also let the currency symbols wrap. If you can find a better way of doing this then please do! 86.161.40.200 (talk) 19:49, 29 April 2009 (UTC).

Images for non-standard punctuation

On many browsers, the non-standard characters do not show at all. For the Therefore sign, no image or character is visible. Perhaps we should use an image file at the top of the box in those cases?--Knulclunk (talk) 12:28, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

{{SpecialChars}} is also an option. Therefore displays fine on my vanilla Mac. What OS/browser are you running? --Cybercobra (talk) 16:18, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Ditto Mark and Ibid.

The ditto mark (〃 [U+3003]) is actually pretty common in some circles--at least much more than the interrobang, and percontation point--and serves a unique purpose. Any objection to my adding it to the "General Typography" section?24.190.34.219 (talk) 01:04, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Size

This is massive, it takes up so much space just for punctuation links. Can we have each section as a drop down?- : 09:16, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

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