The 440-Year-Old Punctuation Mark for Sarcasm

In an age where "sure" can mean genuine agreement or withering contempt depending on context, you'd think we'd have figured out a way to indicate sarcasm in writing by now. Turns out, someone already did—in 1580.

English printer Henry Denham proposed the percontation point, a backwards question mark (⸮), specifically to mark rhetorical questions and ironic statements. The idea was elegant: use it at the end of a sentence, and readers would instantly know you weren't being sincere.

A Problem as Old as the Printing Press

Denham wasn't being frivolous. The printing press had revolutionized communication, but it had also stripped away tone of voice, facial expressions, and all the other cues humans use to detect when someone is being sarcastic. His solution was practical typography.

The percontation point (from Latin percontatio, meaning "a questioning") would work like this:

• Regular question: "Are you coming to dinner?"
• Rhetorical/ironic: "Oh, you think you're so clever⸮"

Readers would know immediately that the second example wasn't a genuine inquiry—it was dripping with sarcasm.

Why It Never Caught On

Despite its usefulness, the percontation point faded into obscurity within a few decades. Printers found it cumbersome to add another character to their type sets. Writers figured context was enough. And honestly, explaining that you're being sarcastic kind of defeats the purpose.

But the idea never completely died. Throughout history, various writers and typographers have proposed similar marks:

• The irony mark (1668) — another attempt at the same concept
• The snark mark (2010) — a modern trademarked version
• The SarcMark — a spiral-like symbol proposed in the digital age

None achieved widespread adoption.

The Digital Resurrection

The internet has made Denham's 440-year-old problem worse than ever. Texts, tweets, and emails are ripe for misunderstanding. We've cobbled together workarounds: "/s" tags on Reddit, alternating caps ("sUrE, tHaT's A gReAt IdEa"), or simply adding "(sarcasm)" in parentheses.

The percontation point actually exists in Unicode (⸮) and can be typed on modern devices. Some typography enthusiasts have championed its revival, arguing that our increasingly text-based communication desperately needs it.

So why don't we use it? Probably the same reason we didn't adopt it in 1580: people prefer to figure out sarcasm on their own. Getting it is part of the fun. And if you have to flag your irony with punctuation, maybe the joke isn't landing anyway.

Still, the next time someone completely misreads your sarcastic text, you can comfort yourself knowing that Henry Denham saw this coming nearly half a millennium ago. He tried to help us. We just didn't listen.