Itinerantdaughter's Blog

I’ve used it about eighteen times, and every time get that special joy that comes with knowing you’ve used the precisely perfect words to describe something.

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From Urban Dictionary

EMOTIONAL HANGOVER

The feeling you wake up with in the morning after an emotional breakdown from the night before. This feeling is sometimes a result from an argument, a deep sadness, an unfortunate loss, a break-up, drama, strong feelings of regret, conflicting emotions, etc.

Typically the night before, you have trouble sleeping – you may even be physically tired yet remain mentally awake – which might involve tossing and turning all night long, a constant vigilance of the clock, and attempts to read or watch TV to try and sleep quicker.

Instead of sleeping away your sadness and waking up refreshed, the feelings come back to make you feel bad, maybe even worse. Now that you’ve had time to dwell on the situation and ponder your own feelings, repeating those feelings again the next day makes it sting a bit more.

Sometimes an emotional hangover is followed by ambivalence(conflicting emotions), stress, more drama, and/or just a really bad mood.

This is bad especially if you aren’t a morning person.

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Real talk.

I’m writing a review of a (soon to be released) book about fonts and typography and have just learned of the existence of the “interrobang,” described and explain by writer Simon Garfield as such:

“The Interrobang is not a font –– just a single character.  Yet it is so powerful a symbol, and such a flawed and original concept, that it deserves a place alongside the most adventurous typographic innovations of the last century.  It is an exclamation mark and a question mark combined, a ligature looping the curve of the interrogation with the downward force of the expletive (which compositors and printers have traditionally called a bang.).  When they meld, they need only one round point at their base.

“The Interrobang has its roots in 1960s advertising.  The New York ad executive Martin Spekter was looking for a way to express astonishment and disliked the clumsy combination of ?! when he wanted to say things like ‘How much?!?!’ and ‘You’re not serious?!’  But when he expressed his frustration in a type magazine he only had the idea for it, not the name.  Readers suggested the Exclamaquest and the QuizDing, before the Interrobang was chosen.”

I would continue on with the explanation of the Interrobang’s lack of success, but I don’t know how to actually type it into this post.

As Garfield calls it, "the Esperanto of fonts."