Q 01/05

The punctuation bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves takes its title from a joke about which animal?

A) Koala

B) Panda

C) Sloth

D) Giraffe

Answer · why

B) Panda

Panda meals are shoots and leaves, but add one comma and the bear dines, fires a gun and walks out. Lynne Truss borrowed the joke for her 2003 guide t...

Q 02/05

Which language opens questions with an upside-down question mark, as its royal academy advised in 1754?

A) Italian

B) Portuguese

C) Spanish

D) French

Answer · why

C) Spanish

Spanish brackets a question at both ends, so readers know the tone from the first word. The same academy ordered a matching upside-down exclamation ma...

Q 03/05

Which 1962 invention by adman Martin Speckter fuses a question mark and an exclamation point?

A) Interrobang

B) Asterism

C) Manicule

D) Punctus elevatus

Answer · why

A) Interrobang

Interrobang joins interrogation to bang, printers' slang for the exclamation mark. Speckter wanted one tidy sign for the incredulous questions that fi...

Q 04/05

Which symbol, once recited as the 27th letter of the English alphabet, began as a joined-up Latin et?

A) Plus sign

B) Ampersand

C) Percent sign

D) Equals sign

Answer · why

B) Ampersand

Ampersand is a slurred form of the chant and per se and, which pupils recited when the symbol closed the alphabet. Its curves still hide the letters E...

Q 05/05

What is the popular name for the optional mark before 'and' in a list such as red, white, and blue?

A) Cambridge comma

B) Yale comma

C) Princeton comma

D) Oxford comma

Answer · why

D) Oxford comma

Oxford comma honours Oxford University Press, whose printer Horace Hart is most often credited with the habit. Editors call the same mark the serial c...