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Quiz about Special Characters and Symbols in Writing
Quiz about Special Characters and Symbols in Writing

Special Characters and Symbols in Writing Quiz


Be sure to set your browser to 'stun,' so you can view the exotic typographical and written symbols I have described here. Each question is preceded by a category of knowledge where that symbol may be seen in use. Good luck!

A multiple-choice quiz by celicadriver. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
celicadriver
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
335,508
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
15
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
10 / 15
Plays
1604
Awards
Top 10% Quiz
Question 1 of 15
1. GENERAL TYPOGRAPHY: The pilcrow symbol looks like a backwards P. What unit of text does it usually introduce? Hint


Question 2 of 15
2. MATHEMATICS: Experts in calculus use a special symbol called the nabla to represent gradients. The nabla is an inverted triangle, known in its "right side up" form as what Greek letter? Hint


Question 3 of 15
3. LANGUAGES: The caron, or haček, is a diacritic mark that looks like a little v above a letter. Which of these written languages would most likely use carons in spelling its written words? Hint


Question 4 of 15
4. MUSIC: What should string players do when they see a square bracket above a note? (The symbol looks a little like an inverted square U with a thick crossmember.) Hint


Question 5 of 15
5. COMMERCE: Consumers may find the estimated symbol on products whose total net contents have been "estimated," as opposed to having been precisely measured. What does the estimated sign look like? Hint


Question 6 of 15
6. ASTROLOGY: The written symbols for the twelve signs of the zodiac are fascinating, exotic, and mysterious. What sign is represented by two squiggly or jagged lines, one above the other? Hint


Question 7 of 15
7. PUNCTUATION: Readers in many countries are accustomed to double quotation marks that look "like this." Elsewhere, printed materials (in France, for example) may instead contain guillemets that set off certain portions of text. What do guillemets MOST closely resemble? Hint


Question 8 of 15
8. CURRENCY: Once upon a time, one of the countries listed below used a capital C with a little r inside it to represent its currency, the Cruzeiro. Which country, before eventually replacing them with the Real, used Cruzeiros? Hint


Question 9 of 15
9. MEASUREMENT: If you have read blueprints, you may have seen a symbol referring to holes that need to be made in objects. The symbol looks a bit like an O with a diagonal slash through it. How is this symbol interpreted? Hint


Question 10 of 15
10. LANGUAGES: Some German words are spelled with a letter called Esszet or scharfes S. A variant of the two-letter combination ss, English speakers may call this letter the sharp S. What other letter or character does the Esszet most closely resemble? Hint


Question 11 of 15
11. PHONETICS: Language experts have compiled numerous systems of symbols that represent the many sounds the human voice can produce. A symbol common to several of these systems is the Greek letter theta. When transcribed into standard phonetic symbols, which of these English words would contain a theta? (Hint: voiceless interdental fricative, occurring medially.) Hint


Question 12 of 15
12. MUSIC: Readers of sheet music may encounter a symbol called a segno (Italian: sign). It looks like a partially rotated S with a diagonal slash and two dots. What does the segno tell the player? Hint


Question 13 of 15
13. CURRENCY: What country uses a capital Y with two horizontal strokes through it to represent the money used there? Hint


Question 14 of 15
14. MATHEMATICS: Vector calculus wizards use a symbol that looks like an upside-down sans serif capital T to signify that two vectors are orthogonal to one another. What related concept does the same symbol denote in geometry? Hint


Question 15 of 15
15. MEASUREMENT: Primes may be seen describing units of time, length, angle, musical pitch, or other measurements. What punctuation mark is the single prime most often confused with? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. GENERAL TYPOGRAPHY: The pilcrow symbol looks like a backwards P. What unit of text does it usually introduce?

Answer: Paragraph

Here is a pilcrow: ¶. Other interesting symbols in printed materials include the section sign §, the asterism ⁂, the reference mark ※, and the dagger and double dagger. My browser won't display the daggers, but you can imagine the single dagger as being similar to a sans serif lowercase t, and a double dagger as the same symbol with an additional horizontal stroke.
2. MATHEMATICS: Experts in calculus use a special symbol called the nabla to represent gradients. The nabla is an inverted triangle, known in its "right side up" form as what Greek letter?

Answer: Delta

In a shocking act of honesty and intimacy among strangers, I'm going to share my calculus report card with you: first semester: A-. Second semester: A. Third semester: F. Since gradients are covered in third semester calculus, I can't really explain them. But the nabla, an inverted delta named after the harp that the symbol resembles, is still pretty cool: ∇.

Bonus calculus trivia: the ∂ symbol deals with partial differentials, a concept related to gradients.
3. LANGUAGES: The caron, or haček, is a diacritic mark that looks like a little v above a letter. Which of these written languages would most likely use carons in spelling its written words?

Answer: Czech

The caron takes its "little v" form with some letters like č and ř, but looks like an apostrophe with other letters, as in ľ and ť. Another fascinating but less known diacritic is the ogonek, a little tail or "reverse cedilla" under a letter. Examples: ǫ and Ų.
4. MUSIC: What should string players do when they see a square bracket above a note? (The symbol looks a little like an inverted square U with a thick crossmember.)

Answer: Play the note with a downbow motion

⊓ is as close as I could come to approximating the downbow symbol without music font support. The opposite of a downbow, the upbow symbol looks a little like a sans serif capital V.
5. COMMERCE: Consumers may find the estimated symbol on products whose total net contents have been "estimated," as opposed to having been precisely measured. What does the estimated sign look like?

Answer: A modified lowercase e

Are you a label reader like me? I wondered for a long time what was meant by, for example, "℮ 200 mL/6.7 FL OZ." Regulations and standards governing fair product packaging and labeling can be quite complex, as I found in my research.
6. ASTROLOGY: The written symbols for the twelve signs of the zodiac are fascinating, exotic, and mysterious. What sign is represented by two squiggly or jagged lines, one above the other?

Answer: Aquarius, the water bearer

Yes, the two squiggly lines look like waves. Aquarius just happens to be my sign. Cancer, Virgo, and Leo represent various members of my family - you know who you are!
7. PUNCTUATION: Readers in many countries are accustomed to double quotation marks that look "like this." Elsewhere, printed materials (in France, for example) may instead contain guillemets that set off certain portions of text. What do guillemets MOST closely resemble?

Answer: Double greater-than and less-than signs << like this >>

Be glad you stuck around for the interesting information, since I included an example of «real guillemets» in action here.
8. CURRENCY: Once upon a time, one of the countries listed below used a capital C with a little r inside it to represent its currency, the Cruzeiro. Which country, before eventually replacing them with the Real, used Cruzeiros?

Answer: Brazil

Writers/printers could use the ₢ symbol, as well as Cr, NCr, Cr$, or NCr$, depending on which "version" of the Cruzeiro was in use at the time.
9. MEASUREMENT: If you have read blueprints, you may have seen a symbol referring to holes that need to be made in objects. The symbol looks a bit like an O with a diagonal slash through it. How is this symbol interpreted?

Answer: Hole diameter

Some authorities make clear distinctions among the four similar-appearing entities of the mathematical empty set ∅, the capital and lowercase Scandinavian letters Ø and ø, and the diameter symbol. My computer won't display the diameter sign, but it is similar to the preceding characters.
10. LANGUAGES: Some German words are spelled with a letter called Esszet or scharfes S. A variant of the two-letter combination ss, English speakers may call this letter the sharp S. What other letter or character does the Esszet most closely resemble?

Answer: A capital B or the Greek letter beta

Here are a few random examples from my German-English dictionary: begrüßen (greet), stoß (push), Fußgänger (pedestrian).
11. PHONETICS: Language experts have compiled numerous systems of symbols that represent the many sounds the human voice can produce. A symbol common to several of these systems is the Greek letter theta. When transcribed into standard phonetic symbols, which of these English words would contain a theta? (Hint: voiceless interdental fricative, occurring medially.)

Answer: ether

In phonetics, theta (θ) represents the "th" sound in English words like "thin" and "faith." The voiced "th" sound in words like "either" and "the" is transcribed with the letter eth, which looks like this: ð. In English, most medial occurrences of the -th- letter combination preceding an -er final syllable are voiced, probably "shaded" by the final syllable: bother, either, rather, etc.

The word ether is a nice exception.
12. MUSIC: Readers of sheet music may encounter a symbol called a segno (Italian: sign). It looks like a partially rotated S with a diagonal slash and two dots. What does the segno tell the player?

Answer: Where to skip back to in the music

The abbreviation D.S. stands for dal segno, and tells the player (or singer) to skip back to the sign.

Some musicians use the slang term "road map" for sheet music that requires complicated skipping and repeating. Here's a breakdown of some more road map symbols and directions: A repeat sign is two dots in the staff followed by a measure line and a thick measure line. Repeats may go to the beginning of the piece, or just to an earlier place in the piece. They may be accompanied by "endings" marked by brackets and numbers. D.C. means da capo, which means that the player should go back to the beginning (head) of the piece. A coda sign (it look likes a crosshairs - an O centered on a large +) marks the ending section (tail) of the piece - you may be directed to stop playing at some point and skip to the coda. The word fine (pronounced FEE-nay) or the fermata (bird's eye) symbol tells the player where to stop playing. It sounds complicated, but seeing these symbols and directions used in a score is usually more intuitive than just reading about them.
13. CURRENCY: What country uses a capital Y with two horizontal strokes through it to represent the money used there?

Answer: Japan

Yes, ¥ stands for Yen. Many currency symbols are common letters that have been modified with extra lines or strokes. Consider, for example, the Euro , the U.S. Dollar $ and cent ¢, and the Korean Won ₩. Other interesting examples from the "money area" of the Unicode character chart are the New Sheqel ₪ and the Rupee ₨.
14. MATHEMATICS: Vector calculus wizards use a symbol that looks like an upside-down sans serif capital T to signify that two vectors are orthogonal to one another. What related concept does the same symbol denote in geometry?

Answer: Perpendicular

The terms orthogonal and perpendicular both refer to right angles.

The Windows character map has an "up tack" character that approximates the perpendicular sign: ⊥. For the other answer choices: the parallel sign looks like this: ∥, but there is no single way to represent an angle or a radius. Usually, though, theta θ or phi φ represent angle variables, and the ∠ symbol can be shorthand for the word "angle." A lowercase italic r often stands for a radius variable.
15. MEASUREMENT: Primes may be seen describing units of time, length, angle, musical pitch, or other measurements. What punctuation mark is the single prime most often confused with?

Answer: The apostrophe '

Apostrophes and closing single quotation marks are interchangeable, as in, 'Here's an example.' For time measurement, 4′33″ would be read as four minutes, thirty-three seconds. People's heights may be given in this form as well; I am 5′7″, that is, five feet, seven inches tall. Musicians may use primes to refer to a pitch's distance from middle C. For example, a′ is the first A above middle C, and a″ is the A above that. Mathematicians sometimes use primes to notate derivatives.

Note that the double prime ″ should not be confused with a double quotation mark ". Printers may call pairs of opening and closing quotes sixes and nines, due to their resemblance to tiny double superscript 6s and 9s.
Source: Author celicadriver

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor looney_tunes before going online.
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