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Full Description
The punctuation marks, mathematical symbols and glyphs which haunt the edges of our keyboards have evolved over many hundreds of years. They shape our understanding of texts, calculations and online interactions. Without these symbols all texts would run in endless unbroken lines of letters and numbers.
Many hands and minds have created, refined and promulgated the symbols which give form to our written communication. Through individual entries discussing the story behind each example, 'Hyphens & Hashtags' reveals the long road many of these special characters have taken on their way into general use. In the digital age of communication, some symbols have gained an additional meaning or a new lease of life - the colon now doubles up as the eyes of a smiling face emoticon and the hashtag has travelled from obscurity to an essential component of social media. Alongside historical roots, this book also considers ever-evolving modern usage and uncovers those symbols which have now fallen out of fashion.
'Hyphens & Hashtags' casts a well-deserved spot-light on these stalwarts of typography whose handy knack for summing up a command or concept in simple shorthand marshals our sentences, clarifies a calculation or adds some much-needed emotion to our online interactions.
Contents
Contents
introduction 1
punctuation 5
Full stop 12
Comma 17
Colon 21
Semicolon 26
Apostrophe 30
Question mark 34
Exclamation mark 38
Ellipsis 43
Quotation marks 47
Brackets 52
Hyphen 56
glyphs 61
Hash sign 66
At sign 70
Ampersand 73
Asterisk 77
Slash 81
Pound sign 85
Dollar sign 89
Euro sign 94
Copyright symbol 97
Emoticons & emoji 101
mathematical symbols 107
Zero 112
Plus sign 117
Minus sign 121
Multiply symbol 125
Divide symbol 129
Equals sign 132
Greater than & Less than 135
Per cent 138
Degree symbol 141
Pi 144
Infinity 147
endangered & extinct symbols 151
Tironian et 156
Interrobang 159
Tilde 162
Hedera 165
Pilcrow 167
Manicule 171
further reading 177
index 179
