To Interrobang, or not to Interrobang: is that even a question!?
(image from Wikimedia commons)
A very interesting piece of punctuation, the Interrobang. What if Wycliffe had one handy? He might have found it useful in Genesis 4:9 –
Y am the kepere of my brothir?!
Or maybe not.
I just realized my coffee pot is not working and I’m thinking, “?!”
I guess this is the equivalent of that rude 3-letter abbreviation people use nowadays — I like the interrobang much better. We can add it to the “8 New Punctuation Marks We Desperately Need”:
http://www.collegehumor.com/article/6872071/8-new-and-necessary-punctuation-marks
Jeannie, Thank you. A cup of tea and that hilarious link has taken the edge off. 🙂
My favorite is the sinceroid. I could actually see myself using that. But how do I underline a period in a comment box?
Where has the superellipsis been all my life? It’s like a visual duhn, duhn, DUHN!
A little off-topic but your reference to Cain reminded me… My son can’t get his head around the fact that if Eve only had 2 sons how could the human race develop into millions of people. I said she also had Seth and then lots of other sons/daughters. The math does add up. But had to explain that in those early Biblical times sisters and brothers could marry… Oh my, what a long time ago that was. “And cousins?” he asked.
I LOVE that my son asks theological questions as it shows he’s thinking about things. But sometimes I do find that internally I have good use for the ‘interrobang’ ( and now I’m finally back on topic!)
Your son’s questions are awesome, and you might tell him that even today it’s considered quite normal for cousins to marry in some places. I’m sure he’ll be the one doing an internal interrobang at that!
One of the more interesting theories I’ve heard on “Where did Cain get his wife?” is the idea that, since there are two creation accounts in Genesis, the first set of humans (“male and female created he them”) did not exactly have souls, because later we’re told that God breathed a soul into Adam. So Adam and Eve had souls, but perhaps there were still some of the “soulless” ones about when Cain took a wife—and the soul then could be transmitted to their children. And presumably, the theory goes, the rest of the soulless were wiped out in the flood.
It left me wondering if/how the soul could be transmitted. Genetically? Spiritually like
original sin? A bit creepy, but interesting, nevertheless.
I’ve never heard that one, MA. If it were to be true, it seems idiosyncratic to the rest of humanity in God’s creation. I tend to think that there were a lot more kids from Adam and Eve than are recorded in Genesis, including daughters of course.
I will mention that… and it may reap all kinds of ‘cultural diversity’ issues.
God bless!