# question question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-question/853>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 13, 1999, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-question/853 "1999-06-13T23:29:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 1999, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-question/853/1 "1999-06-13T23:29:00Z")

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If Dr. Evils father didn’t do it, then who did invent the question mark?

* * *

“If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, set them on fire.”----George Carlin

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 1999, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-question/853/2 "1999-06-14T02:55:00Z")

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From the Encyclopaedia Brittanica:

It is in the  
earliest specimens of the new Carolingian minuscule script, written at  
Corbie and Aachen about 780-800, that the first evidence for a new  
system of punctuation appears. It soon spread, with the script itself,  
throughout Europe, reaching its perfection in the 12th century. Single  
interior stops in the form of points or commas and final groups of  
stops continued in use; but they were joined by the mark later  
known as punctus elevatus (!) and by the question mark (punctus  
interrogativus), of much the same shape as the modern one but  
inclined to the right. The source of these two new marks was  
_apparently_ the system of musical notation, called neumes, which is  
known to have been used for Gregorian chant from at least the  
beginning of the 9th century. Punctus elevatus and punctus  
interrogativus indicated not only a pause and a syntactical break  
but also an appropriate inflection of the voice.

Does that answer your question (punctus  
interrogativus)

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 1999, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-question/853/3 "1999-06-14T12:39:00Z")

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The story I heard was that the “?” was somehow an abreviation for Q.O., which in turn was an abreviation of “question”. Sounds a little too-cute-to-be-true, so I suspect that Sly’s explanation is closer to the truth.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 1999, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-question/853/4 "1999-06-14T12:40:00Z")

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The story I heard was that the “?” was somehow an abreviation for Q.O., which in turn was an abreviation of “question”. Sounds a little too-cute-to-be-true, so I suspect that Sly’s explanation is closer to the truth.