After grade school, we like to think we know the ins and outs of punctuation. The comma goes there, the question mark marks the end of a question, don't overuse exclamation points or you sound a little crazy -- the list goes on. But what if there was an entire new layer of interesting sentence annotators we didn't know existed?
Turns out, there are. A lot of them, actually. But, these little guys aren't taught very often in the classroom, and I doubt you'd get extra points if you turned them in with a college essay. But for the word nerds and the grammar geeks of the world, let me introduce you to some brand new friends.
Quirky Question Marks
As luck would have it, there's more to the question mark than meets the eye. Instead of being a stand alone squiggle, there's actually a whole family of question marks. These include:
Percontation Point: These guys end a sentence that contains a rhetorical question, and look exactly like a backwards question mark.
Irony Mark: Looks extremely similar to the percontation point, with a little more sass. These guys come BEFORE an ironic statement, to give the reader a quick heads up as to what's coming.
Doubt Point: As the name would suggest, this guys indicate that you're not certain, and look a little like the love child between a question mark and a cursive Z.
Interrobang: Probably one of my favorite words for punctuation ever, this fun one is the combination between an exclamation point and a question mark, so we can stop writing things as ?!.
SnarkSharks
Now, the fact that these exist alone brought me way too much joy. Apparently, the punctuation gods also thought of how to indicate your witty batter in emails. To avoid accidentally offending your boss, they came up with these fun guys.
SarcMark: Like an @ that replaced the the a with a period, this mark ends a sarcastic sentence, instead of throwing in JK for good measure.
SnarkMark: Somewhere between a period, a tilde and a winky face, the SnarkMark works the same as a the SarcMark, just with snarky sentences. So punctuate on, my cheeky friends!
The Exclamators
Rounding out these little-known punctuation marks, let's bring out the exclamators, otherwise known of the peppy cheerleaders of the punctuation world.
Acclamation Point: Proof that two is better than one, the acclamation point is essentially two exclamation points in one, and expresses welcome or goodwill.
The Really Cute One I Couldn't Leave Out
Yes, it turns out even punctuation has a soft side. The Love Point, as it's called, is two question marks mirroring each other under one point. Which, you guessed it, makes a heart! And like the name and the symbol would suggest, this mark denotes love and affection. It's practically an emoji, but a grammatically correct emoji. 
Crazy thing is, these aren't all of them. There's quite a number of lesser known punctuation marks in the English language, and it's up to us to bring them into fashion. So what do you think? Which one would you use the most?
