What is the origin of the question mark?
Question mark
In the early 13th century, when the growth of communities of scholars (universities) in Paris and other major cities led to an expansion and streamlining of the book-production trade, punctuation was rationalized by assigning Alcuin's stroke-over-dot specifically to interrogatives; by this time the stroke was more sharply curved and can easily be recognized as the modern question mark.
Tag question
A tag question (also known as tail question) is a grammatical structure in which a declarative or an imperative statement is turned into an interrogative fragment (the "tag"). For example, in the sentence "You're John, aren't you?", the statement "You're John" is turned into a question by the tag "aren't you". The term "question tag" is generally preferred by British grammarians, while their American counterparts prefer "tag question".
House mark
The Norwegian word "bomerke" or "boemerke" probably came from Denmark. There is no Norwegian reference before the 17th century. Today "bomerke" is mainly written as "bumerke" in Norwegian. Both in Denmark and Sweden, the word bomerke (with multiple spellings) is used since the 14th century and in the 16th century. In the Icelandic codes of law from the Middle Ages, one finds the word "einkunn" used to denote owner marks used to tag animals. It is likely that this word has also been used in Norway.
Interrogative
Another common way of marking questions is with the use of a grammatical particle or an enclitic, to turn a statement into a yes–no question enquiring whether that statement is true. A particle may be placed at the beginning or end of the sentence, or attached to an element within the sentence. Examples of interrogative particles typically placed at the start of the sentence include the French "est-ce que" and Polish "czy". (The English word "whether" behaves in this way too, but is used in indirect questions only.) The constructed language Esperanto uses the particle "ĉu", which operates like the Polish "czy":
Question mark
In Armenian, the question mark (՞) takes the form of an open circle and is placed over the last vowel of the question word. It is defined in Unicode at .
Inverted question and exclamation marks
Inverted question marks (¿) and exclamation marks (Commonwealth English) or exclamation points (American English) (¡) are punctuation marks used to begin interrogative and exclamatory sentences (or clauses), respectively, in written Spanish and sometimes also in languages which have cultural ties with Spanish, such as in older standards of Galician (now it is optional and not recommended) and the Waray language. They can also be combined in several ways to express the combination of a question and surprise or disbelief. The initial marks are normally mirrored at the end of the sentence or clause by the common marks (?, !) used in most other languages. Unlike the ending marks, which are printed along the baseline of a sentence, the inverted marks (¿ and ¡) descend below the line.
Question authority
"Question authority" is a popular slogan often used on bumper stickers, T-shirts and as graffiti. The slogan was popularized by controversial psychologist Timothy Leary, although some people have suggested that the idea behind the slogan can be traced back to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. One of the most influential icons in the counterculture movement which formed in the late 1960s out of opposition to the Vietnam War's escalation, Leary gained influence among much of the youth by advocating the use of LSD – which was criminalized in the United States in 1966 – as a way to escape from the burdens of society. Following the Watergate Scandal, which resulted in the resignation of US President Richard Nixon and the conviction of several officials in the Nixon administration, the slogan became arguably the most accepted form of ideology among baby boomers.
Italian grammar
Questions are formed by a rising intonation at the end of the sentence (in written form, a question mark). There is usually no other special marker, although wh-movement does usually occur. In general, intonation and context are important to recognize questions from affirmative statements.
Status quo (Israel)
The prevailing view attributes the origins of the status quo to a letter sent by David Ben-Gurion, as chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, on 19 June 1947, to the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Israel, in order to form a united policy to present to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), which had commenced its fact-finding tour 4 days earlier. The letter was meant to address their concerns that the emerging State of Israel will be a secular one, which might hurt the status of religion and religious institutions, as well as the values of their followers.
Question mark
Hebrew and Yiddish are also written right-to-left, but they use a question mark that appears on the page in the same orientation as the Roman-alphabet question mark.
The question mark is also used in modern writing in Chinese and Japanese, although it is not strictly necessary in either. Usually it is written as fullwidth form in Chinese and Japanese, in Unicode: .
Inverted question and exclamation marks
Some writers omit the inverted question mark in the case of a short unambiguous question such as: ("Who comes?"). This is the criterion in Catalan. Certain Catalan-language authorities, such as Joan Solà i Cortassa, insist that both the opening and closing question marks be used for clarity.
Mark (Australian rules football)
Others claim that the origin of the mark comes from the traditional Aboriginal game of Marn Grook, which is said to possibly have influenced Tom Wills' writing of the laws of the game. It is claimed that in Marn Grook, jumping to catch the ball, called ""mumarki"", an Aboriginal word meaning "to catch", results in a free kick. Some counterclaim this theory as false etymology.
Question (comics)
Early in his career, the Question used seemingly blank calling cards with a delayed chemical reaction that after a specified time caused a question mark to appear in a burst of gas. Other writing could be similarly treated to reveal itself at the pre-determined time.
Looped square
The looped square (⌘) is a symbol consisting of a square with outward pointing loops at its corners. It is referred to by this name, for example, in works regarding the Mississippian culture. It is also known as the place of interest sign when used on information signs, a practice which started in Finland in the 1950s, spreading to the other Nordic countries in the 1960s. Also, the symbol is known as Saint John's Arms or Saint Hannes cross (related to Swedish "sankthanskors", Danish "johanneskors", and Finnish "hannunvaakuna"), as Gorgon loop, and as command key symbol due to its use on the command key on Apple computer keyboards.
Gibbs paradox
The question marks (?) serve as a reminder that we may not assume that the first n particles (i.e. 1 though n) are in system-A while the other particles (n through N) are in system-B. (This is further discussed in the next section.)
Question mark
It has also been suggested that the glyph derives from the Latin "quaestiō" meaning "question", which was abbreviated during the Middle Ages to "qo". The lowercase "q" was written above the lowercase "o", and this mark was transformed into the modern symbol. However, evidence of the actual use of the Q-over-o notation in medieval manuscripts is lacking; if anything, medieval forms of the upper component seem to be evolving towards the q-shape rather than away from it.
Gregory Edwards
"The question mark might serve as an entry point to the 32-year-old artist's ongoing interest in the push and pull between abstraction and representation, the open-ended sense of play in his wild, often ostentatious patterning and his rigid structural control, and flat, thinly applied surfaces. After all, a question mark added to any last word turns the work of interpretation onto the audience."
Inverted question and exclamation marks
Some Spanish-language writers, among them Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), refuse to use the inverted question mark. It is common in Internet chat rooms and instant messaging now to use only the single "?" as an ending symbol for a question, since it saves typing time. Multiple closing symbols are used for emphasis: , instead of the standard ("Why do you say that?"). Some may also use the ending symbol for both beginning and ending, giving Given the informal setting, this might be unimportant; however, teachers see this as a problem, fearing and claiming that contemporary young people are inappropriately and incorrectly extending the practice to academic homework and essays. (See )
Question Mark &amp; the Mysterians (album)
Question Mark & the Mysterians is a 1997 eponymous album by the garage rock band ? and the Mysterians, known for their #1 1966 hit "96 Tears". The album was recorded by the original members of the band as a result of their inability to access their masters or re-release their own earlier material, which had passed from the ownership of label Cameo to Allen Klein. It included all of the songs released on their first album, "96 Tears", as well as several other tracks. The rerecorded version of "96 Tears" was subsequently incorporated into compilations.
Chess annotation symbols
While question marks indicate bad moves, exclamation points ("!") indicate good moves—especially ones which are surprising or involve particular skill. Hence annotators are usually somewhat conservative with the use of this symbol.
Quotation mark
The term smart quotes (“…”) is from the name in several word processors of a function aimed this problem: automatically converting straight quotes typed by the user into curved quotes, the feature attempts to be "smart" enough to determine whether the punctuation marked opening or closing. Since curved quotes are the typographically correct ones, word processors have traditionally offered curved quotes to users (at minimum as available characters). Before Unicode was widely accepted and supported, this meant representing the curved quotes in whatever 8-bit encoding the software and underlying operating system was using. The character sets for Windows and Macintosh used two different pairs of values for curved quotes, while ISO 8859-1 (historically the default character set for the Unixes and older Linux systems) has "no" curved quotes, making cross-platform and -application compatibility difficult.
Question mark
Lynne Truss attributes an early form of the modern question mark in western language to Alcuin of
Chess annotation symbols
German grandmaster Robert Hübner prefers an even more specific and restrained use of move evaluation symbols:
"I have attached question marks to the moves which change a winning position into a drawn game, or a drawn position into a losing one, according to my judgment; a move which changes a winning game into a losing one deserves two question marks ... I have distributed question marks in brackets to moves which are obviously inaccurate and significantly increase the difficulty of the player's task ... There are no exclamation marks, as they serve no useful purpose. The best move should be mentioned in the analysis in any case; an exclamation mark can only serve to indicate the personal excitement of the commentator."
Mark Goodacre
Mark Goodacre (born 1967 in Leicestershire, England) is a New Testament scholar and Professor at Duke University's Department of Religion. He has written extensively on the Synoptic Problem; that is, the origins of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. He has defended the Farrer hypothesis, and thus accepts Markan priority but rejects Q.
Buzzword
The origin of buzzwords can be seen in as coming from business students studying at Harvard University as a way to help them gain better results from their studies. Such language terms were collated and then became what is known today as "buzzwords". During the early years of buzzwords, buzzwords were used by students as a means to enable them to quickly recall items of importance. As an example, "If his analysis does not highlight the most important problems he has 'poor focus', and if he fails to emphasize important recommendations he will be accused of 'tinkering'. If the sequence for the 'implementation' of the recommendations is not good it is a matter of 'poor timing'. To succeed, the student must 'get on top of the problem'. He must 'hit the problem' and not 'shadow box' it. If he cannot do these things he might just as well 'turn in his suit'".
Question The Mark
Towards the end of 2011, the group recruited drummer James Tilley to replace the departed Bryn Feasey and embarked on a series of shows across the UK before starting work on their next release. The EP "Smoke Signals" was written between December 2011 & February 2012 and recorded at Jamtown Studios in Bridgend, South Wales in April 2012 and released on Team Beard Records in July the same year to coincide with the band's first European tour. Bassist Ross Goldworthy was drafted in for the tour due to BT's university commitments.
Question mark
The question mark is often utilized as a wildcard character: a symbol that can be used to substitute for any other character or characters in a string. In particular "?" is used as a substitute for any one character as opposed to the asterisk, "*", which can be used as a substitute for zero or more characters in a string. The inverted question mark (¿) corresponds to Unicode code-point , and can be accessed from the keyboard in Microsoft Windows on the default US layout by holding down the Alt and typing either 1 6 8 (ANSI) or 0 1 9 1 (Unicode) on the numeric keypad. In GNOME applications on GNU Linux operating systems, it can be entered by typing the hexadecimal Unicode character (minus leading zeros) while holding down both Ctrl and Shift, I J mm.e.: Ctrl Shift B F. In recent XFree86 and X.Org incarnations of the X Window System, it can be accessed as a compose sequence of two straight question marks, i.e. pressing Compose ? ? yields ¿. In classic Mac OS and Mac OS X (macOS), the key combination Option Shift ? produces an inverted question mark.
Kitemark
The Kitemark was originally conceived in 1903 as a symbol to identify products manufactured to meet British Standards' specifications. "Kitemark" came from the kite shape of the graphic device which was drawn up – an uppercase B (for British) on its back, over an S (for standard), enclosed by a V (for verification).
Asterisk
The asterisk derives from the two thousand year old character used by Aristarchus of Samothrace called the asteriskos, ※, which he used when proofreading Homeric poetry to mark lines that were duplicated. Origen is known to have also used the asteriskos to mark missing Hebrew lines from his Hexapla. The asterisk evolved in shape over time, but its meaning as a symbol used to correct defects remained.
Irony punctuation
Irony punctuation is any proposed form of notation used to denote irony or sarcasm in text. Written English lacks a standard way to mark irony, and several forms of punctuation have been proposed. Among the oldest and most frequently attested is the percontation point proposed by English printer Henry Denham in the 1580s, and the irony mark, used by Marcellin Jobard and French poet Alcanter de Brahm during the 19th century. Both marks take the form of a reversed question mark, "⸮".
Question mark
A question mark may also appear immediately after questionable data, such as dates:
Slovene punctuation
A question mark can be used non-syntactically if it denotes doubt.
Quotation mark
In France, by the end of the nineteenth century, they were modified to an angular shape and were "spaced out" (« … »). Some authors claim that the reason for this was a practical one, in order to get a character that was clearly distinguishable from the apostrophes, the commas and the parentheses. Also, in other scripts, the angular quotation marks are distinguishable from other punctuation characters—the Greek breathing marks, the Armenian emphasis and apostrophe, the Arabic comma, decimal separator, thousands separator, etc. Other authors claim that the reason for this was an aesthetic one. The elevated quotation marks created an extra white space before and after the word that was considered aesthetically unpleasing, while the in-line quotation marks helped to maintain the typographical color, since the quotation marks had the same height and were aligned with the lower case letters. Nevertheless, while other languages do not insert a space between the quotation marks and the word(s), the French usage does insert them, even if it is a narrow space.
Exclamation mark
The exclamation mark was first introduced into English printing in the 15th century to show emphasis, and was called the "sign of admiration or exclamation" or the "note of admiration" until the mid-17th century; admiration referred to its Latin sense of wonderment.
Quotation mark
The double quotation mark is older than the single. It derives from a marginal notation used in fifteenth-century manuscript annotations to indicate a passage of particular importance (not necessarily a quotation); the notation was placed in the outside margin of the page and was repeated alongside each line of the passage. By the middle sixteenth century, printers (notably in Basel, Switzerland) had developed a typographic form of this notation, resembling the modern double quotation mark pointing to the right. During the seventeenth century this treatment became specific to quoted material, and it grew common, especially in Britain, to print quotation marks (now in the modern opening and closing forms) at the beginning and end of the quotation as well as in the margin; the French usage (see under Specific language features below) is a remnant of this. In most other languages, including English, the marginal marks dropped out of use in the last years of the eighteenth century. The usage of a pair of marks, opening and closing, at the level of lower case letters was generalized.
Exclamation mark
In comic books and comics in general, a large exclamation point is often used near or over a character's head to indicate surprise. A question mark can similarly be used to indicate confusion.
Diacritic
A diacritic – also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent – is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek ("diakritikós", "distinguishing"), from ("diakrī́nō", "to distinguish"). "Diacritic" is primarily an adjective, though sometimes used as a noun, whereas "diacritical" is only ever an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute ( ´ ) and grave ( ` ), are often called "accents". Diacritical marks may appear above or below a letter, or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters.
Q&amp;A software
In the late 1990s, a free online service called Answer Point provided by Ask Jeeves, was launched, allowing users to ask questions and with the help of other people, have them answered. The slogan of the service, "The Ask Jeeves Answer Point is the place where you can ask and answer questions. Have a question? Post it! Know the answer? Post it!", indicated the main function of it, which inspired the creation of later Q&A sites. The last archived version of the Ask Point was from late 2001 when it still allowed registration.
Question Mark (TV program)
Question Mark is a Canadian current affairs television program which aired on CBC Television from 1963 to 1964.
Quotation marks in English
Quotation marks were first cut in metal type during the middle of the sixteenth century, and were used copiously by some printers by the seventeenth. In some Baroque and Romantic-period books, they would be repeated at the beginning of every line of a long quotation. When this practice was abandoned, the empty margin remained, leaving the modern form of indented block quotation.
Punctuation of English
The question mark is used to mark the end of a sentence which is a question.
QSL card
QSL card derived its name from the Q code "QSL". A Q code message can stand for a statement or a question (when the code is followed by a question mark). In this case, 'QSL?' (note the question mark) means "Do you confirm receipt of my transmission?" while 'QSL' (without a question mark) means "I confirm receipt of your transmission.".
Interrobang
"What the...?! Neves, Called Dead in Fall, Denies It" (headline from "San Francisco Examiner", May 9, 1936)
American Martin K. Speckter (1915 – February 14, 1988) conceptualized the interrobang in 1962. As the head of an advertising agency, Speckter believed that advertisements would look better if copywriters conveyed surprised rhetorical questions using a single mark. He proposed the concept of a single punctuation mark in an article in the magazine "TYPEtalks". Speckter solicited possible names for the new character from readers. Contenders included "exclamaquest", "QuizDing", "rhet", and "exclarotive", but he settled on "interrobang". He chose the name to reference the punctuation marks that inspired it: "interrogatio" is Latin for "rhetorical question" or "cross-examination"; "bang" is printers' slang for the exclamation mark. Graphic treatments for the new mark were also submitted in response to the article.
Question mark
Bracketed question marks can be used for rhetorical questions, for example "Oh, really(?)", in informal contexts such as closed captioning. For an ironic or sarcastic statement, a bracketed exclamation mark may be used: "Oh, really(!)".
Quotation mark
Initially, the French guillemet characters were not angle shaped but also used the comma (6/9) shape. They were different from English quotes because they were standing (like today's guillemets) "on" the baseline (like lowercase letters), and not above it (like apostrophes and English quotation marks) or hanging down from it (like commas). At the beginning of the nineteenth century, this shape evolved to look like  small parentheses . The angle shape appeared later to increase the distinction and avoid confusions with apostrophes, commas and parentheses in handwritten manuscripts submitted to publishers. Unicode currently does not provide alternate codes for these 6/9 guillemets on the baseline, which are still considered as form variants implemented in older French typography (such as the Didot font design). Also there was not necessarily any distinction of shape between the opening and closing guillemets, with both types pointing to the right (like today's French closing guillemets).
Rhetorical question
Depending on the context, a rhetorical question may be punctuated by a question mark (?), full stop (.), or exclamation mark (!), but some sources argue that it is required to use a question mark for any question, rhetorical or not.
Doubtful Point
Doubtful Point () is a point forming the east side of the entrance to Enten Bay, Cumberland West Bay, in South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean. The name appears to be first used on a 1929 British Admiralty chart.
Landmark quiz
Landmark Quiz is an annual quiz contest instituted in 1992 by the Landmark Bookstores owned by Tata Group through its Trent (Westside) brand. Since 2008, the event has been held in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune on various dates. The quiz is mostly conducted on national holidays, and is one of the oldest open quizzes in India.
Rhetorical question
In the 1580s, English printer Henry Denham invented a "rhetorical question mark" for use at the end of a rhetorical question; however, it fell out of use in the 17th century. 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.
Question mark
In many Web browsers and other computer programs, when converting text between encodings, it may not be possible to map some characters into the target character set. In this situation it is common to replace each unmappable character with a question mark ?, inverted question mark ¿, or the Unicode replacement character, usually rendered as a white question mark in a black diamond: . 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, such as Microsoft Office's "smart quotes".
Hallmark
The control or inspection of precious metals was an ancient concept of examination and marking, by means of inspection stamps (punch marks). The use of hallmarks, at first on silver, has a long history dating back to the 4th century AD — there is evidence of silver bars marked under authority of the Emperor Augustinian around AD 350 — and represents the oldest known form of consumer protection. A series or system of five marks has been found on Byzantine silver dating from this period, though their interpretation is still not completely resolved.
? and the Mysterians
? and the Mysterians (also rendered Question Mark and the Mysterians) are an American garage rock band of Mexican origins from Bay City and Saginaw in Michigan who were initially active between 1962 and 1969. Much of the band's music consisted of electric organ-driven garage rock and an enigmatic image inspired by the science fiction film "The Mysterians". In addition, the band's sound was also marked by raw-resonating lead vocals of "?" (Question Mark, the stage name of Rudy Martínez), making Question Mark and the Mysterians one of the earliest groups whose musical style is described as punk rock. Through their music, the group was recognized as a template for similar musical acts to follow.
Inverted question and exclamation marks
Although it has now become rare, it is correct usage in Spanish to begin a sentence with an opening inverted exclamation mark ("¡") and end it with a question mark ("?"), or vice versa, for statements that are questions but also have a clear sense of exclamation or surprise such as: ("Who do you think you are?!"). Normally, four signs are used, always with one type in the outer side and the other in the inner side (nested) (', ')
Speakeasy (computational environment)
Note that, in other contexts, a question mark may have a different meaning: for example, when used as the first (and possibly only) character of a command line, it means the request to show more pieces of a long error message (which ends with a "+" symbol).
Quiz
The earliest known examples of the word date back to 1780; its etymology is unknown, but it may have originated in student slang. It initially meant a "odd, eccentric person" or a "joke, hoax". Later (perhaps by association with words such as "inquisitive") it came to mean "to observe, study intently", and thence (from about mid-19th century) "test, exam."
Cadit quaestio
As a mark in copy editing, "cq" implies that the accuracy of a statement, fact, etc., has been verified. It is usually placed in a draft article by the writer, to the attention of the copy editor. The precise origin of the term is uncertain, but 'cq' was identified as the shorthand form of "correct" in the 1879 Phillips Code, a set of abbreviations used in the transmission of press reports via telegraph, first published in 1879. Alternate explanations of the origin include an abbreviation for "cadit quaestio", indicating that the issue is "no longer in question", and an abbreviation for "correct as quoted", which serves as a useful mnemonic. "Cq" is a mark for internal use only, intended for removal prior to publishing. It should be distinguished from the unrelated mark "sic", used in published pieces to indicate that a quote has been transcribed verbatim, without correcting perceived errors in the original source.
Questionnaire
A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions (or other types of prompts) for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. The questionnaire was invented by the Statistical Society of London in 1838.
Quotation marks in English
In Early Modern English, quotation marks were used to denote pithy comments. They were used to quote direct speech as early as the late sixteenth century, and this practice became more common over time.
House mark
A house mark was originally a mark of property, later also used as a family or clan emblem, incised on the facade of a building, on animals, in signet and similar in the farmer and burgher culture of Germany and Scandinavia. The tradition originates with the mason's marks used in the Middle Ages.
Nuqta
Nuqtā (Hindi-Urdu नुक़्ता, نقطہ, from Arabic "nuqta" نقطة "dot," or "period."), also spelled Nuktā, is a term for a diacritic mark that was introduced in Devanāgari and some other Indian scripts to represent sounds not present in the original scripts. It takes the form of a dot placed below a character. Also, in another sense deriving from the Arabic script itself, there "are some letters in Urdu that share the same basic shape but differ in the placement of dots(s) or nuqta(s)" in the Urdu script: the letter ع "ain", with the addition of a nuqta, becomes the letter غ g͟hain.
Semicolon
In Greek and Church Slavonic, a semicolon indicates a question, similar to a Latin question mark. To indicate a long pause or separate sections, each with commas (the semicolon's purpose in English), Greek uses, but extremely rarely, the "άνω τελεία", an interpunct ( · ).
Sarcasm
Though in the English language there is no standard accepted method to denote irony or sarcasm in written conversation, several forms of punctuation have been proposed. Among the oldest and frequently attested are the percontation point—furthered by Henry Denham in the 1580s—and the irony mark—furthered by Alcanter de Brahm in the 19th century. Both of these marks were represented visually by a ⸮ backwards question mark (unicode U+2E2E). Each of these punctuation marks are primarily used to indicate that a sentence should be understood as ironic, but not necessarily designate sarcasm that is not ironic. By contrast, more recent proposals, such as the snark mark, or the use of a following tilde are specifically intended to denote sarcasm rather than irony. A bracketed exclamation point or question mark as well as scare quotes are also sometimes used to express irony or ironic sarcasm.
Naming conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet
The is usually called by the sound it represents, "glottal stop". This is not normally a problem, because this symbol is seldom used to represent anything else. However, to specify the symbol itself, it is sometimes called a "gelded question mark". This latter name is derived from its original form as a dotless question mark in a fashion reminiscent of gelding.
Source criticism (biblical studies)
Source criticism is the search for the original sources which lie behind a given biblical text. It can be traced back to the 17th-century French priest Richard Simon, and its most influential product is Julius Wellhausen's "Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels" (1878), whose "insight and clarity of expression have left their mark indelibly on modern biblical studies". An example of source criticism is the study of the Synoptic problem. Critics noticed that the three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, were very similar, indeed, at times identical. The dominant theory to account for the duplication is called the two-source hypothesis. This suggests that Mark was the first gospel to be written, and that it was probably based on a combination of early oral and written material. Matthew and Luke were written at a later time, and relied primarily on two different sources: Mark and a written collection of Jesus's sayings, which has been given the name Q by scholars. This latter document has now been lost, but at least some of its material can be deduced indirectly, namely through the material that is common in Matthew and Luke but absent in Mark. In addition to Mark and Q, the writers of Matthew and Luke made some use of additional sources, which would account for the material that is unique to each of them.
Entscheidungsproblem
The origin of the " goes back to Gottfried Leibniz, who in the seventeenth century, after having constructed a successful mechanical calculating machine, dreamt of building a machine that could manipulate symbols in order to determine the truth values of mathematical statements. He realized that the first step would have to be a clean formal language, and much of his subsequent work was directed towards that goal. In 1928, David Hilbert and Wilhelm Ackermann posed the question in the form outlined above.
Question mark
A question mark is used in English medical notes to suggest a possible diagnosis. It facilitates the recording of a doctor's impressions regarding a patient's symptoms and signs. For example, for a patient presenting with left lower abdominal pain, a differential diagnosis might include "?diverticulitis" (read as "query diverticulitis").
Question mark
According to a 2011 discovery by Chip Coakley, a Cambridge University manuscript expert, Syriac was the first language to use a punctuation mark to indicate an interrogative sentence. The Syriac question mark, known as the "zagwa elaya" or "upper pair", has the form of a vertical double dot over a word.
Chess annotation symbols
The double question mark "??" indicates a blunder, a very bad mistake. Typical moves which receive double question marks are those that overlook a tactic that wins substantial material or overlook a checkmate. A "??"-worthy move usually results in an immediately lost position. Occasionally, the sign is used for a move which transforms a won position into a draw, perhaps because the annotator feels that the mistake is unworthy of the player's skill level. They occur at all levels of play to all human competitors.
Manchu alphabet
The equivalent of the question mark in Manchu script consists of some special particles, written at the end of the question.
Question Time British National Party controversy
"Question Time" is the flagship BBC Television political panel show, which began in 1979. The weekly show, hosted by David Dimbleby since 1994, takes place at locations around the country. Questions from a local audience are directed to a panel of invited guests, usually consisting of British politicians, alongside other public figures. The topics for debate during the programme are loosely defined by "set-piece" questions from pre-selected audience members. For each topic, the question is answered by each panel member in turn, followed by supplementary questions on the topic, time permitting. The show is pre-recorded a few hours before being broadcast, and it is stressed by Dimbleby as the programme starts, that the panellists have no previous knowledge of the content of the questions.
Tag question
In most languages, a tag question is set off from the sentence by a comma(,).
In Spanish, where the beginnings of questions are marked with an inverted question mark, it is only the tag, not the whole sentence, which is placed within the question bracket:
Henry Denham
Denham invented the rhetorical question mark "⸮", which did not become a permanent part of the language.
Minkowski's question-mark function
and
Question
A research question is an interrogative statement that manifests the objective or line of scholarly or scientific inquiry designed to address a specific gap in knowledge. Research questions are expressed in a language that is appropriate for the academic community that has the greatest interest in answers that would address said gap. These interrogative statements serve as launching points for the academic pursuit of new knowledge by directing and delimiting an investigation of a topic, a set of studies, or an entire program of research.
Wondermark
In 2014, the word "sea lioning" (also rendered "sea-lioning" or "sealioning") was coined based on a "Wondermark" strip, referring to a type of Internet trolling which consists of bad-faith requests for evidence, or repeated questions, in an attempt to derail a discussion or to wear down the patience of one's opponent. In the comic strip, a character expresses a dislike of sea lions, and a sea lion immediately appears, following the character around to repeatedly ask why that is.
Irish question
The Irish Question was a phrase used mainly by members of the British ruling classes from the early 19th century until the 1920s. It was used to describe Irish nationalism and the calls for Irish independence.
Begging the question
The phrase "begging the question" originated in the 16th century as a mistranslation of the Latin "," which actually translates to "assuming the initial point". In modern vernacular usage, "begging the question" is often used to mean "raising the question" or "dodging the question". In contexts that demand strict adherence to a technical definition of the term, many consider these usages incorrect.
Question Mark (aircraft)
The flight of the "Question Mark" did spark an interest in aerial refueling by the Royal Air Force, seeking to minimize takeoff weights of its bombers and reduce wear-and-tear on its grass airfields, but after a series of experiments between 1930 and 1937 they abandoned testing. The development of better engines, variable-pitch propellers and all-metal low-wing monoplanes capable of greater range deferred further military interest in aerial refueling, but when the next war turned out to be global in scale, also resulted in lack of capability for many ferrying, antisubmarine, and bombardment operations requiring extended range.
Jehovah
18th-century theologian John Gill puts forward the arguments of 17th-century Johannes Buxtorf II and others in his writing, "A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points and Accents". He argued for an extreme antiquity of their use, rejecting the idea that the vowel points were invented by the Masoretes. Gill presented writings, including passages of scripture, that he interpreted as supportive of his "Jehovist" viewpoint that the Old Testament must have included vowel-points and accents. He claimed that the use of Hebrew vowel points of , and therefore of the name "Jehovah" , is documented from before 200 BCE, and even back to Adam, citing Jewish tradition that Hebrew was the first language. He argued that throughout this history the Masoretes did not invent the vowel points and accents, but that they were delivered to Moses by God at Sinai, citing Karaite authorities Mordechai ben Nisan Kukizov (1699) and his associates, who stated that "all our wise men with one mouth affirm and profess that the whole law was pointed and accented, as it came out of the hands of Moses, the man of God." The argument between Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism on whether it was lawful to pronounce the name represented by the Tetragrammaton is claimed to show that some copies have always been pointed (voweled) and that some copies were not pointed with the vowels because of "oral law", for control of interpretation by some Judeo sects, including non-pointed copies in synagogues. Gill claimed that the pronunciation can be traced back to early historical sources which indicate that vowel points and/or accents were used in their time. Sources Gill claimed supported his view include:
Louis Cappel
As a Hebrew scholar he made a special study of the history of the Hebrew text, which led him to the conclusion that the vowel points and accents are not an original part of the Hebrew language, but had been inserted by the Massorete Jews of Tiberias, no earlier than the 5th century; he also concluded that the primitive Hebrew characters are those now known as the Samaritan, while the square characters are Aramaic and were substituted for the more ancient at the time of the captivity. These conclusions, published anonymously in his book "Arcanum punctuationis revelatum" (Leiden, 1624), were hotly contested by Johannes Buxtorf II, since they conflicted with those of his father, Johannes Buxtorf senior; Elias Levita had already disputed the antiquity of the vowel points, with which neither Jerome nor the Talmud showed any acquaintance. Eighteenth-century theologian John Gill in his writing, "A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points and Accents", disputed the idea that the vowel points were invented by the Masorites, and claimed that Hebrew authorities removed the vowel points because of their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. Gill shows that the name "Jehovah" is documented from before 200 B.C. throughout the centuries of Jewish Authorities, the early Church and the following millennium. He argued that throughout this history the Masorites did not invent the vowel points and accents, but that they were delivered to Moses by God at Sinai, citing Karaite authorities Mordechai ben Nisan Kukizov (1699) and his associates, who stated that "all our wise men with one mouth affirm and profess that the whole law was pointed and accented, as it came out of the hands of Moses, the man of God," The argument of the Karaites shows that some copies have always been pointed and some copies were not pointed with the vowels, especially those copies in Synagogues which Gill talks about. Gill claims that various early sources support the pronunciation of "Jehovah", including:
Question
In languages written in Latin, Cyrillic or certain other scripts, a question mark at the end of a sentence identifies questions in writing. (In Spanish an additional inverted mark is placed at the beginning: "¿Cómo está usted?" "How are you?") As with intonation, this feature is not restricted to sentences having the grammatical form of questions – it may also indicate a sentence's pragmatic function.
Q source
While the two-source hypothesis remains the most popular explanation for the synoptic gospels' origins, the existence of the "minor agreements" has raised serious concerns. These minor agreements are those points where Matthew and Luke agree against or beyond Mark precisely within their Markan verses (for example, the mocking question at the beating of Jesus, "Who is it that struck you?" [//], found in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark, although it should be noted that this "minor agreement" falls outside the usually accepted range of Q.) The "minor agreements" call into question the proposition that Matthew and Luke knew Mark but not each other, e.g. Luke might have indeed been following Matthew, or at least a Matthew-like source. Peabody and McNicol argue that until a reasonable explanation is found the two-source hypothesis is not viable.
Point Danger (Tweed Heads)
In 1970, on the 200th anniversary of Cook's naming of Point Danger and given that the location seemed to be correct, a memorial was placed at the current site and the New South Wales, Queensland and Federal governments combined to erect the Point Danger Captain Cook Memorial Lighthouse. However, in 1971, the following year, after much debate about the location of Cook's Point Danger and the Queensland-New South Wales border, the Geographical Names Board declared:
"little doubt exists that the feature named Point Danger by Captain Cook was in actual fact the feature now known as Fingal Head. However, as the name has been known in its present position for over 130 years and having in mind the wording of the letters Patent of 6 June 1859, in which the position of the QLD-New South Wales border is linked with the position of Point Danger, the Board is not prepared to assign the name to any feature or position other than that to which it is currently located." 
The misnaming obviously raised a significant constitutional issue. Yet despite this pronouncement, some 18 years later debate was still continuing. In November 1989 the Geographical Names Board approved a historical re-enactment of Cook's voyage. The research for the re-enactment led to Acting Chief Surveyor Ron Benjamin finding that:
"From the re-enactment voyage, I now have no doubt that Captain Cook's, 'point of land under which lies a small island', was intended to be today's Fingal Head."
However, in 1998, following another review, the New South Wales Geographic Names Board, it was concluded, in part:
"From an analysis of Cook’s Private Log, the Official Log of the ‘Endeavour’, Cook’s Journal and the journals of Cook’s Officers, and relating the analysis to modern nautical charts and maps of the area, it is suggested that the following conclusions be drawn:
Question mark
In Scrabble, a question mark indicates a blank tile.
Mark (currency)
The mark was a currency or unit of account in many nations. It is named for the mark unit of weight. The word "mark" comes from a merging of three Teutonic/Germanic words, Latinised in 9th-century post-classical Latin as ', ', ' or '. It was a measure of weight mainly for gold and silver, commonly used throughout Western Europe and often equivalent to eight ounces. Considerable variations, however, occurred throughout the Middle Ages.
Question mark
In mathematics, "?" commonly denotes Minkowski's question mark function. In equations, it can mean "questioned" as opposed to "defined".
Question mark
In computing, the question mark character is represented by ASCII code 63 (0x3F hexadecimal), and is located at Unicode code-point . The full-width (double-byte) equivalent (？), is located at code-point .
Quotation mark
The single quotation marks emerged around 1800 as a means of indicating a secondary level of quotation. One could expect that the logic of using the corresponding single mark would be applied everywhere, but it was not. In some languages using the angular quotation marks, the usage of single ones (‹…›) became obsolete, being replaced by double curved ones (“…”); the single ones still survive, for instance, in Switzerland. In Eastern Europe, the curved quotation marks („…“) are used as a secondary level when the angular marks («…») are used as a primary level.
Q source
In 1838 another German, Christian Hermann Weisse, took Schleiermacher's suggestion of a sayings source and combined it with the idea of Markan priority to formulate what is now called the Two-Source Hypothesis, in which both Matthew and Luke used Mark "and" the sayings source. Heinrich Julius Holtzmann endorsed this approach in an influential treatment of the synoptic problem in 1863, and the two-source hypothesis has dominated ever since.
Tag system
According to a footnote in Post 1943, B. P. Gill suggested the name for an earlier variant of the problem in which the first "m" symbols are left untouched, but rather a check mark indicating the current position moves to the right by "m" symbols every step. The name for the problem of determining whether or not the check mark ever touches the end of the sequence was then dubbed the "problem of tag", referring to the children's game of tag.
?: A Question Mark
This was the first time not only in Indian Cinema but world over that a film was being released without a title. Instead, to describe the unseen, unheard story, all that was used was a symbol, "?" However, the movie had to be released with a written title "Question Mark" due to censorship rules.
The Race Question
The Race Question is the first of four UNESCO statements about issues of race. It was issued on 18 July 1950 following World War II and Nazi racism to clarify what was scientifically known about race, and as a moral condemnation of racism. It was criticized on several grounds and revised versions were publicized in 1951, 1967, and 1978.
Rock the Slut Vote
Rock the Slut Vote is a registered trademark that was issued on January 22, 2013 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to Susan MacMillan Emry. Emry applied for the trademark to use as part of a feminist public relations campaign centering on American politics and voting. The name originated from a remark made by conservative commentator, Rush Limbaugh, who called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a "slut" after she testified in favor of contraceptives at a Congressional hearing in February, 2012. In interviews with journalists, Emry states that "she chose to brand the site with the derogatory term in an effort to take it back and turn it into a rallying cry" and that she had not previously been politically engaged. Emry was inspired by an article in Huffington Post written by Morra Aarons-Mele entitled "Getting Out the Slut Vote in 2012."
Inverted question and exclamation marks
The inverted question mark was adopted long after the Real Academia's decision, published in the second edition of the (Orthography of the Castilian language) in 1754 recommending it as the symbol indicating the beginning of a question in written Spanish—e.g. ("How old are you?"). The Real Academia also ordered the same inverted-symbol system for statements of exclamation, using the symbols "¡" and "!". This helps to recognize questions and exclamations in long sentences. "Do you like summer?" and "You like summer." are translated respectively as and (There is not always a difference between the wording of a yes–no question and the corresponding statement in Spanish.) These new rules were slowly adopted; there exist 19th-century books in which the writer uses neither "¡" nor "¿".
Jewish question
The term "Jewish question" was first used in Great Britain around 1750 when the expression "Jewish question" appeared during the Jew Bill of 1753 debates in England. According to Holocaust scholar Lucy Dawidowicz, the term "Jewish Question," as introduced in western Europe, was a neutral expression for the negative attitude toward the apparent and persistent singularity of the Jews as a people against the background of the rising political nationalisms and new nation-states. Dawidowicz writes that "the histories of Jewish emancipation and of European antisemitism are replete with proffered 'solutions to the Jewish question.'"
Exclamation mark
Some comic books, especially superhero comics of the mid-20th century, routinely use the exclamation point instead of the period, which means the character has just realized something; unlike when the question mark appears instead, which means the character is confused, surprised or they do not know what is happening. This tends to lead to exaggerated speech, in line with the other hyperboles common in comic books. A portion of the motivation, however, was simply that a period might disappear in the printing process used at the time, whereas an exclamation point would likely remain recognizable even if there was a printing glitch. For a short period Stan Lee, as Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics, attempted to curb their overuse by a short-lived ban on exclamation points altogether, which led to an inadvertent lack of ending punctuation on many sentences.
Quotation marks in English
In English writing, quotation marks or inverted commas, also known informally as quotes, talking marks, speech marks, quote marks, quotemarks or speechmarks, are punctuation marks placed on either side of a word or phrase in order to identify it as a quotation, direct speech or a literal title or name. They are also used to indicate that the meaning of the word or phrase they surround should be taken to be different from (or, at least, a modification of) that typically associated with it (e.g. in the sentence "the elite, composed by people of mixed ancestry, embraced their "whiteness"" the quotation marks modify the word "whiteness" to pertain to European culture rather than the colour white); in this way, they are often used to express irony. They also sometimes appear to be used as a means of adding emphasis, although this usage is usually considered incorrect.
Exclamation mark
The exclamation mark is sometimes used in conjunction with the question mark. This can be in protest or astonishment ("Out of all places, the squatter-camp?!"); a few writers replace this with a single, nonstandard punctuation mark, the interrobang, which is the combination of a question mark and an exclamation mark.
List of minor characters in Judge Dredd
The question mark was part of his surname, which was a running joke each time someone asked him what his name was, when people would become confused and rephrase the question.
Button (poker)
The use of other small disks as such markers led to the alternative term "button". Silver dollars were later used as markers and it has been suggested that this is the origin of "buck" as a slang term for "dollar," though by no means is there universal agreement on this subject. The marker is also referred to as "the hat". The origin of this term is believed to stem from the wearing of a hat having been used to denote dealership.
Question mark
In English, the question mark typically occurs at the end of a sentence, where it replaces the full stop (period). However, the question mark may also occur at the end of a clause or phrase, where it replaces the comma :