Irony sign

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Signs of irony in a 1905 French encyclopedia

The irony mark is a suggested but rarely used punctuation mark with which the ironic meaning of a sentence or part of a sentence can be emphasized. It is usually represented by a mirror-inverted question mark (U + 2E2E).

The following sentence uses the sign of irony to express that it is by no means perceived as pleasant to slap your finger:

“Every other day I hit myself on the finger with a hammer for a bad salary. Egg! That's how I love my work⸮ "

history

The sign of irony was proposed in 1899 by the French poet Alcanter de Brahm (pseudonym of Marcel Bernhardt). Since it is not available in Unicode in its original design (as of 2020, Unicode Version 13), it can be represented with the roughly similar character U + 2E2E reversed question mark from the Unicode block Additional punctuation , which in Unicode as punctus percontativus (punctuation marks for rhetorical questions in some early modern prints).

The suggestion of a sign of irony was taken up again about seventy years later in 1966 by Hervé Bazin in his book Plumons l'oiseau ( Eng .: we pluck the bird ), but he used a different form similar to the Greek letter Ψ ( Point d'ironie (Hervé Bazin) .svg) . At the same time, he suggested five more punctuation marks: for doubt ( Point de doute (Hervé Bazin) .svg) , conviction ( Point de conviction (Hervé Bazin) .svg) , agreement ( Point d'acclamation (Hervé Bazin) .svg) , authority ( Point d'autorité (Hervé Bazin) .svg), and love ( Point d'amour (Hervé Bazin) .svg) .

Another sign ( ) intended to convey irony in documents was proposed by the Dutch foundation CPNB ( Collectieve Propaganda van het Nederlandse Boek ) in early 2007 .

Use and reception

The originally envisaged use in printed matter hardly happens. Nevertheless, the sign was and is repeatedly referred to by well-known authors. Kurt Tucholsky wrote under the pseudonym "Peter Panter" in 1925 in the "Vossische Zeitung":

"A Frenchman once suggested a new punctuation mark: the point d'ironie."

Christoph Markschies , then President of Berlin's Humboldt University , said on the occasion of Marcel Reich-Ranicki's honorary doctorate :

“Of course, today I don't have to use the exclamation mark required by Jean Paul and Heinrich Heine to mark ironic turns of phrase; Peter Wapnewski, who will thankfully give us the laudation, and Marcel Reich-Ranicki himself are such masters of irony, are a point d'ironie that has become a figure. "

Further references to signs of irony are in Jean Méron's essay on typography En question: la grammaire typographique. Étude critique (1998) compiled.

criticism

It is criticized that the use of ironic signs removes the irony from the irony, which would lie in leaving the true meaning of the statement open. The sign of irony prematurely resolves the dissonance between statement and meaning and thereby counteracts the mocking aspect. It is also criticized that the use of irony symbols can lead to misunderstandings, especially if it is inflationary and is used differently.

Alternatives

Other irony labels are used almost exclusively on the Internet, in forums and chats. Sometimes what is meant ironically is enclosed by two characters, so-called irony tags , <ironie> and </ironie> (based on the SGML style), sometimes it is closed with an emoticon , such as a winking smiley ;-) . In social networks !!! 111 !!! or similar strings are used. The use of irony buttons [o] is also common in some forums. Since 2006, the German-language subtitles of English-language films have occasionally seen the exclamation mark in brackets as a sign of irony. In the subtitles of the Danger Man series, for example, there is the sentence "I'm happy (!)"

See also

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  1. ^ Nouveau Larousse illustré , Paris 1897–1905, volume 5, page 329, keyword irony
  2. Alcanter de Brahm: L'Ostensoir des Ironies . Reprinted in 1996 with an introduction to Le Point sur l' Ironie by Pierre Schoentjes, ISBN 2-903974-91-8
  3. a b Jean Méron: En question: La Grammaire typographique. Étude critique. (PDF; 4.3 MB) November 1998, p. 21 ff. , Accessed on August 5, 2018 (French).
  4. Michael Everson et al .: Proposal to add Medievalist and Iranianist punctuation characters to the UCS (UTC Document L2 / 07-004, ISO / IEC JTC1 / SC2 / WG2 Document N3193). (PDF) Unicode Technical Committee, January 9, 2007, pp. 3, 24 , accessed April 25, 2017 . - U + 2E2E reversed question mark is suggested there at position U + 2E34.
  5. Hervé Bazin: Plumons l'oiseau . Editions Bernard Grasset, Paris 1966, et al. P. 142.
  6. Mykyta Yevstifeyev et al .: Revised preliminary proposal to encode six punctuation characters Introduced by Hervé Bazin in the UCS. (PDF; 706 kB) ISO / IEC JTC1 / SC2 / WG2, February 28, 2012, accessed on July 28, 2012 (English).
  7. Nieuw: een voor leesteken irony. Stichting Collectieve Propaganda van het Nederlandse Boek (CPNB), March 13, 2007, archived from the original on October 3, 2008 ; Retrieved September 15, 2012 (Dutch).
  8. Leesteken moet ironie verduidelijken. Nieuwsblad.be, March 15, 2007, accessed September 15, 2012 (Dutch).
  9. Peter Panter: The Apaches . In: Vossische Zeitung, February 1, 1925.
    Also: Kurt Tucholsky, Mary Gerold-Tucholsky (Ed.): Collected works in 10 volumes . Rowohlt, Hamburg, Vol. 4, p. 30. ISBN 349929012X .
  10. Speech by HU President Markschies on the occasion of Marcel Reich-Ranicki's honorary doctorate. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin , November 27, 2006, accessed on August 5, 2018 .
  11. Discussion on the GERASPORA website , last accessed on August 5, 2018.
  12. A short digression into the opaque shallows of ironism , article on Philosophical Snippets - Notes, Essays & Reflections on Culture, Media, Literature and Contemporary Philosophy , last accessed on August 5, 2018.
  13. But please with pictures of Andreas Frey on faz.net , last accessed on August 5, 2018.
  14. Katharina Niemetz: What does "!! 11elf" mean? The internet phenomenon simply explained. CHIP , July 17, 2017, accessed April 6, 2020 .