Reference

From ancient Greece to the Internet—via the Renais¬
sance, Gutenberg, and Madison Avenue— Shady
Characters exposes the secret history of punctuation.

Praise for Shady Characters

"If Eats, Shoots & Leaves whetted your appetite on the subject
of punctuation, then you have a treat in store. Shady Charac¬
ters is an authoritative, witty, and fascinating tour of the history
and rationale behind such lesser-known marks as the amper¬
sand, the manicule, the pilcrow, and the interrobang. Keith
Houston also explains the octothorpe—otherwise known as the
hashtag—and my final comment on his book is #awesome."
—BEN YAGODA, author of How to Not Write Bad

"Make no mistake: this is a book of secrets. With zeal and
rigor, Keith Houston cracks open the &, the #, the t, and
more-all the little matryoshka dolls of meaning that make writ¬
ing work. Inside, we meet novelists, publishers, scholars, and
scribes; we range from ancient Greeks to hashtagged tweets;
and we see the weird and wonderful foundations of the most
successful technology of all time."—ROBIN SLOAN, author of
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

"I'm a sucker for this stuff. The @ is called chiocciola (snail) in
Italian! The & was once taught as a letter of the alphabet! The
manicule has been with us for a millennium! Thank you, Keith
Houston, for bringing these little mysteries out of the shadows
of typographic history."-CONSTANCE HALE, author of
Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch and Sin and Syntax