Thread by @frajds

#DidYouKnow that the modern exclamation mark (!) may be derived from the Latin interjection "io"? Medieval copyists wrote "io," which more or less means "hurray," at the end of a sentence to indicate joy. In time the i moved above the o and the o became smaller, becoming a point.

This is probably better known, but the ampersand (&) is also a character derived from scribal shorthand. It's just a ligature of Latin "et" ("and"). This is easier seen in some typefaces than others.

The origin of the question mark is not as certain. Some people think that it came from an intonation mark (something like a \ or a ~), indicating a change of pitch. In that case it may be related to neumes, the notation system used to represent pitch in Gregorian chant.

Another theory is that it comes from "qo," a Latin scribal abbreviation for "quæstio". Eventually the q ended on top of the o and unfurled into the modern "?" form. There doesn't seem to be a lot of actual manuscript evidence for this, but hey, it's a cool idea.

As for the asperand, better known as the "at sign" (@), it may come from the Latin word "ad" ("at"). This is easier to imagine when you keep in mind the older letter form of d written more like ∂. Eventually the tail of the d reached all the way around the a and voilà.

The dagger symbol (†) is ancient. It was invented by Zenodotus in the 3rd century BC to mark questionable or corrupt words while editing Homeric epics. Saint Jerome used it while editing the Old Testament, calling it an "obelisk". That's Greek for "roasting spit" (ὀβελίσκος).

The name and origin of the asterisk (*) is also pretty literal. It means "little star" (ἀστερίσκος). Aristarchus of Samothrace used it to mark duplicated lines in the Homeric corpus. Later both Origen and Jerome used it in their editing of the Scriptures.

Back to Latin origins. The hash sign (#) is an abbreviation of the Latin "libra pondo" which means "a pound by weight." It used to look like this: ℔, but the final curve of the b eventually crossed the whole sign, and it was eventually simplified into its current form.

The origin of the dollar sign ($) is not as certain, but it might be a representation of the Pillars of Hercules. (The dollar sign with two vertical strokes makes this clearer.) This symbol was minted on the back of "pieces of eight" to represent Spain's American possessions.

(Another theory is that it comes from "US", where the U was printed over the S and the bottom curve eventually dropped out, but that's so boring I don't even want to entertain the idea.)

I have nothing to say about the paragraph sign (¶) except that it is also called the pilcrow, which comes from the Middle English word pylcrafte, which is just a corruption of Greek παράγραφος (paragraphos). So... it still means "paragraph," except it's weird.

The equals sign (=) is a boring Renaissance-era usurpation of the much cooler and better "æ" sign which had been used before. It stood for Latin æqualis, which means what you think it does.

Angle quotes (« »), which we call French quotes sometimes (because anything that isn't English is apparently French), are also called guillemets after the French printer and punchcutter Guillaume Le Bé. In other words, they're basically called "little williams."

The caret (^) is a symbol often used in proofreading to indicate that something is missing from the text. That's fitting, since "caret" is simply Latin for "it is lacking."