Literary Signs and Symbols Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hyphen

The word 'hyphen' comes originally to us from the Greek hypo-, which means 'under', and -hen, a neuter form of 'heis' which means 'one'. So...hyphen means 'under one'. Any guesses as to why the etymology of hyphen is derived thusly?

Answer: !

Ecphonesis (An outcry, a powerful display of passion) and Epiphonema (An epical reflection concluding discourse) are two very fancy words for our 'exclamation point'. Try using one of those words in a party crowd sometime in the future, you are guaranteed to dazzle!

Answer: Little star

When in doubt...go for the obvious one*...the similarity between the words astronomy and asterisk cannot be ignored! Asteriskos is the original Greek term, which means 'little star'.

*Unless one was not paying attention! You knew I had to exploit the opportunity here to use an asterisk...

Answer: Curse or swear words

If you have ever read ^%?@# Mad Magazine, you will certainly have been made *%&*$ familiar with such %#@&* symbols. There does seem to be an art to it...that is, don't repeat the same symbol twice in a row and avoid symmetry!

Answer: Acute

The acute marker is used regularly in languages like French (i.e. pensée) but rarely used in standard English writing. The word 'acute' originally derives from the Latin for 'to sharpen'...hence the other meanings for the word (ending in a sharp point, sharpness or severity, etc.).

Answer: Brackets

This was a bit of a tricky one I think. Parenthesis (or pl. parentheses) refer to these markers ( ), while these { } are called braces. Brackets and braces are usually used for enclosure while parentheses are used for insertion. The two bracket styles are called square (shown in the question) and angle - the quiz template guard against use of html precludes my displaying angle brackets here.

Answer: :

The : is known as a colon, the same name as the lower part of your large intestine that connects the cecum and the rectum. Although they have the same name, they are mutually identifiable...wouldn't you say?

Answer: Macron

The word 'macron' really makes sense when you realize it comes from the Greek (makros) for 'long'!

Answer: &

The ampersand, used to indicate the word and, is a ligature (running together) of the letters e and t used in the Latin word "et", meaning and. It gets its name from the fact that it used to be listed at the end of the alphabet, as a 27th symbol, and would be the last one recited when saying the alphabet aloud.

At that time, it was also common practice to insert the phrase "per se" (meaning by itself, used to indicate that it is the symbol being described, not a word with the same sound). The recitation of the alphabet therefore ended with the phrase 'Z and per se and', which became slurred to ampersand.

Answer: ?

No one is sure about the origin of the ? symbol...but some believe it is the Greek semicolon (;) ...upside down!