Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The Interrobang, Part II



via shady characters
“The interrobang’s arrival on the keyboard of Remington Rand’s Model 25 typewriter brought with it a new wave of interest in the character. In common with its appearance in Richard Isbell’s Americana, the mark’s transition from hot metal type to the typewriter keyboard was the result of a happy coincidence: a Remington Rand graphic designer saw ATF’s sample brochure for the font and lobbied in turn for its provision on his company’s typewriters. The Model 25’s replaceable key and typehead allowed different characters to be installed as required, providing the perfect vehicle for promoting this as-yet unproven mark of punctuation. Remington Rand entertained ideas of effecting a revolution in punctuation with its new interrobang key. . . ”

Read the rest here; part one can be found here.