Lee Yan Fong Library

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Houston, Keith, 1977-

Shady characters : the secret life of punctuation, symbols, & other typographical marks / Keith Houston. - First edition. - New York ; London : W.W. Norton & Company, [2013] - 340 pages ; 22 cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The pilcrow -- The interrobang -- The octothorpe -- The ampersand -- The @ symbol -- The asterisk and dagger -- The hyphen -- The dash -- The manicule -- Quotation marks -- Irony and sarcasm -- Irony in history -- Ironics -- Digital sarcasm.

Revealing the secret history of punctuation, this tour of two thousand years of the written word, from ancient Greece to the Internet, explores the parallel histories of language and typography throughout the world and across time.

ISBN: 9780393064421 0393064425

LCCN: 2013017324

Subjects--Topical Terms:
Punctuation--History.
Signs and symbols--History.
Type and type-founding--History.
Writing--History.
Punctuation.
Signs and symbols.
Type and type-founding.
Writing.

Index Terms--Genre/Form:
History.

LC Class. No.: P301.5 P86 / H68 2013

Dewey Class. No.: 411