The open sarcasm movement

A while back I (and a lot of other people it turns out) wrote about something called the SarcMark.  It was a punctuation mark that a group of people introduced and wanted people to pay $1.99 for the privilege of using.  Needless to say I (and a lot of other people it turns out) was not enthused.

Now a new group by the name of Open Sarcasm has formed to promote a punctuation mark that already exists for sarcasm.  According to Open Sarcasm, Ethiopia uses an upside down exclamation mark (graphically similar to the beginning of an exclamation in Spanish) to denote sarcasm.  Since it is similar to the upside down exclamation used in Spanish, it is already available in fonts and keyboards, and does not require a special mark and software to be able to use.  This addresses my biggest gripe with the SarcMark–why not use something that other people have already tried and used before?  Oh right, because you can’t charge $2 for that.

My favorite part of Open Sarcasm’s manifesto, referring to the SarcMark:

II. On Developers Creating New Forms of Punctuation Without Consulting Typography Experts

Yeah. They shouldn’t do that.

Check out Open Sarcasm, and join the revolution!

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