From: Doug Ewell (dewell@adelphia.net)
Date: Tue Sep 06 2005 - 22:39:29 CDT
Peter Kirk <peterkirk at qaya dot org> wrote:
> How short-sighted is this grammatical analysis‽
I like this use case for interrobang much better than the "amazed
incredulity" scenario. A slang expression like "How cool is this‽"
really is one part exclamation and one part question. The interrobang
actually seems fitting there, though I had never before seen it used in
that context.
Now, a reasonable question is whether such a construction would ever
occur in Spanish at all. Spanish slang is not known for its subtlety;
"your mama sucks doorknobs" is about as coy as it gets. Would a Spanish
speaker even say something like "¿¡Qué guay es ésto‽" (with an inverted
‽) or would that be considered a bit prissy?
-- Doug Ewell Fullerton, California http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
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