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The question mark (?), also known as an '''interrogation point''', '''query''',In journalism. See Truss, Lynne. ''Eats, Shoots & Leaves'', 2003. p. 139. ISBN 1-592-40087-6. or '''eroteme''', is a Punctuation Mark that replaces the Full Stop at the end of an Interrogative Sentence . It can also be used mid-sentence to mark a merely interrogative phrase, where it functions similarly to a Comma , such as in the single sentence "Where shall we go? and what shall we do?", but this usage is increasingly rare. The question mark is not used for indirect questions. The question mark character is also often used in place of missing or unknown data. HISTORY The symbol is generally thought to originate from the Latin ''quæstio'', meaning "question", which was abbreviated to ''Qo''. The uppercase ''Q'' was written above the lowercase ''o'', and this mark was transformed into the modern symbol. Another hypothesis about the origin of the question mark proposes that it originated in the 9th Century , when it appeared as a point followed by the curved portion written slanted (similar to the Tilde ). Lynne Truss attributes an early form to Alcuin Of York .Truss, Lynne. ''Eats, Shoots & Leaves'', 2003. p. 76. ISBN 1-592-40087-6. Truss describes the ''punctus interrogativus'' of the late 700s as "a lightning flash, striking from right to left." The name "question mark" was coined in the late 1800s.Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots & Leaves, 2003. p. 76. ISBN 1-592-40087-6. The point has always indicated the end of a sentence. The curved line represented the intonation pattern of a spoken question, and may be associated with a kind of early musical notation, like Neume s. An American Superstition that Movie s or Television Show s with question marks in the title do poorly at the Box Office has made many studios shy away from the punctuation mark. This has caused many works to be retitled when adapted for American cinema, such as the book '' Who Censored Roger Rabbit? '', which was retitled '' Who Framed Roger Rabbit '' (without the question mark) for the big screen. PROPER PLACEMENT Spacing before the question mark Some writers place a space between the end of their sentence and the question mark. This usage is thought to stem from French practice and is known as at French Wikipedia). In English, however, the insertion of this space is generally considered bad form. The Oxford English Dictionary rules against it. Some English-language books do appear to have these spaces, but these are often a Thin Space or a Hair Space , which are not full spaces but merely a form of Kerning used to make the text less cramped and thus easier to read. (For detailed discussion of spaces ''after'' a question mark, see Full Stop .) Multiple question marks Using multiple question marks at the end of a sentence is considered improper (i.e. "What???"). If the need for urgency or illustration of higher confusion is needed, an exclamation point and a question mark should be used ("What?!"). OTHER LANGUAGES In some languages, such as Spanish and Galician , typography since the 18th Century has required opening and closing question marks, as in "¿Qué hora es?" (What time is it?); an interrogative sentence or phrase begins with an inverted question mark ('''¿''') and ends with the question mark ('''?''') (see more on Usage In Spanish ). However, this Orthographical convention is often disregarded in quick Typing . In Greek and Church Slavonic , a Semicolon (;) is used as a question mark. In Armenian the question mark (՞ ) has a form of an open circle and is placed over the last vowel of the question word. In Arabic , which is written from right to left, the question mark "؟" is mirrored right-to-left from the English question mark. (Some browsers may display the character in the previous sentence as a forward question mark due to font or text directionality issues.) Hebrew is also written right-to-left, but uses a question mark that appears on the page in the same orientation as the English "?".Truss, Lynne. ''Eats, Shoots & Leaves'', 2003. p. 143. ISBN 1-592-40087-6. The question mark is also used in modern writing in Chinese , Korean , and Japanese , though it is not required in Japanese. Usually it is written as Fullwidth Form (？; Unicode : U+FF1F) in Chinese and Japanese. RHETORICAL QUESTION MARK The rhetorical question mark was invented by Henry Denham in the 1580s and was used at the end of a Rhetorical Question ; however, it died out of use in the 1600s. It was the reverse of an ordinary question mark, so that instead of the main opening pointing back into the sentence, it opened away from it.Truss, Lynne. ''Eats, Shoots & Leaves'', 2003. p. 142. ISBN 1-592-40087-6. Some have adapted the question mark into various Irony Mark s, but these are very rarely seen. COMPUTING In Computing , the question mark Character is represented by ASCII code 63, and is located at Unicode Code-point U+003F. The full-width (double-byte) equivalent, ？, is located at Unicode code point U+FF1F. The question mark is often utilized as a , it can be accessed as a compose sequence of two straight question marks, i.e. pressing The question mark is used in ASCII renderings of the International Phonetic Alphabet , such as SAMPA in place of the Glottal Stop symbol, ʔ, (which resembles "?" without the dot), and corresponds to Unicode code point U+0294, Latin letter glottal stop. In operator, which is used to evaluate simple boolean conditions. In C# 2.0, the "?" modifier and the "??" operator are used to handle nullable data types. In the POSIX syntax for Regular Expression s, such as the one used in Perl and Python , ?''' stands for "zero or one instance of the previous subexpression", i.e. an optional element. In many Web Browser s, "?" is used to show a Character not found in the program's Character Set . This commonly occurs for apostrophes and quotation marks when they are written with software that uses its own proprietary non-standard code for these characters. Some fonts will instead use the Unicode Replacement Glyph (U+FFFD, �), which is commonly rendered as a white question mark in a black diamond. The generic URL (Universal Resource Locator) syntax allows for a Query String to be appended to a resource location in a web address so that additional information can be passed to a script; the query mark, ?, is used to indicate the start of a query string. A query string is usually made up of a number of different field/value pairs, each separated by the Ampersand symbol, &, as seen in this url: example.com/login.php?username=test&password=blank. LINGUISTICS In Linguistics , the question mark is prepended to strings to show that the linguist cannot determine whether they are Well-formed or not. It is used similarly to the Asterisk , which marks strings that are clearly ill-formed. It may be doubled to show greater uncertainty, or combined with the asterisk to show that the string is most likely ill-formed but that there is room for doubt. CHESS In Algebraic Chess Notation , "?" denotes a bad move, and "??" a blunder. For details see Punctuation (chess) . MATHEMATICS In Mathematics "?" commonly denotes Minkowski's Question Mark Function . COMICS, CARTOONS AND EMOTICONS In Comic vignettes and strips, and in Cartoon s, the symbol "?" over a character's head denotes ignorance, doubt or the sudden surprise of the subject, and with the same meaning is used with Emoticon s. The Batman Villain Riddler wears a costume decorated with question marks--often a Green Leotard dotted with them, or perhaps a suit and a tie with a single question mark on it)--denoting his curious Modus Operandi . The DC hero The Question often uses the question mark as a symbol and leaves notes with a "?" on them to show he was involved. NOTES REFERENCES
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