1. Interrobang ‽

In 1962, advertising executive Martin Speckter proposed fusing the question mark and exclamation point into a single glyph, meant for that specific tone of disbelief: "You did what‽" It briefly had its own typewriter key. Then word processors happened, and it faded into typography trivia.

2. Percontation Point ⸮

Long before the interrobang, 16th-century English printer Henry Denham proposed a mirrored question mark to close out rhetorical questions, signaling to the reader that no answer was expected. Four hundred years later, we're still relying on tone of voice and context to do that job in text.

3. Manicule ☞

This pointing hand has been scribbled in manuscript margins since the 1100s, and later cast into metal type by early printers to flag important passages. It's arguably the ancestor of the "see below" and even the cursor pointer. It survives today mostly as a novelty, not a functional mark.

4. Tironian Et ⁊

Over 2,000 years old, invented by Tiro, Cicero's secretary, as shorthand for "and." It predates the ampersand by centuries and, remarkably, a version of it is still used in written Irish today.

5. Asterism ⁂

Three asterisks arranged in a small triangle, once used to mark a minor break between ideas without escalating to a full section header. A quieter, more elegant "meanwhile."

6. Hedera ❦

Also called an "Aldus leaf," this ivy-shaped ornament closed out paragraphs in Renaissance-era printing. It did nothing functional. It just looked good, which honestly might be why it disappeared once printing got faster and cheaper.

7. Two-Em Dash ⸺

Twice the length of a standard dash, historically used to redact a name the writer didn't want to spell out in full, as in "Mr. B ⸺ arrived at midnight."

Punctuation, in the end, is just failed UX design for tone. Some experiments landed. Most didn't. The em dash's current fame is really just a reminder that written language is still being negotiated, one mark at a time.