The interrobang is a non-standard punctuation mark that combines the functions of a question mark and an exclamation point. Originally a mark for rhetorical questions, interrobang can also be used to ask an excited question and express excitement or disbelief.
The name comes from the Latin interrogatio, translating roughly as question or inquiry and the English bang, a slang word for exclamation mark. Interrobang was first conceptualised in 1962 in New York by an advertising executive Martin K. Speckter in an article about his frustration with copywriters combining the exclamation and question marks to finish a rhetorical question. Unfortunately the enthusiasm for the interrobang was quite short-lived and it has largely fallen out of use by the early ’70s.
