Interrobang
fused question mark and exclamation point
The interrobang, ‽, also known as the interabang, is a punctuation mark intended to combine the functions of the question mark (also known as the interrogative point) and the exclamation mark (also known in the jargon of printers as a "bang"). The glyph is a combination of those two marks and was first proposed in 1962 by Martin K. Speckter.
Other rejected names for the interrobang were the "emphaquest," "interropoint" or "exclarogative".
Application
A sentence ending with an interrobang states a question in an excited manner, expresses excitement, disbelief, or confusion in the form of a question, or asks a rhetorical question.
For example:
You call that a hat‽
Are you out of your mind‽
Are you a dummy‽
Writers using informal language may use several alternating question marks and exclamation marks for even more emphasis. However, this is regarded as poor style in formal writing.
History
Historically, writers have used multiple consecutive punctuation marks to end a sentence expressing both surprise and question.
What the...?! Neves, Called Dead in Fall, Denies It
Invention
American Martin K. Speckter (June 14, 1915 – February 14, 1988) conceptualized the interrobang in 1962. As the head of an advertising agency, Speckter believed that advertisements would look better if copywriters conveyed surprised rhetorical questions using a single mark.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Interrobang” is fused question mark and exclamation point. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Interrobang, fused and question, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q427676. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1962, 1915 and 1988.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Interrobang” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.