The interrobang is a typographical symbol that combines the question mark (?) and the exclamation mark (!) into a single glyph (‽). It was first proposed in 1962 by Martin K. Speckter, a magazine writer, in an article in the magazine “TYPEtalks,” and was designed to indicate a sentence that is a question as well as an exclamation, or to convey a sense of surprise or disbelief with a question.
The name “interrobang” is a combination of “interrogation” and “bang,” which is an old printers’ term for the exclamation mark. The interrobang has not been widely adopted, and is not included in most standard fonts. However, it can be found in some specialized fonts and character sets, and can be created by combining a question mark and an exclamation mark in some word processing programs.
The interrobang has been proposed as a way to save space in headlines or advertising copy, as it combines two symbols into one, and can also be used to convey a more nuanced tone in written communication. However, it has not gained widespread acceptance, and the traditional separate question mark and exclamation mark remain the standard punctuation marks for conveying questions and exclamations, respectively.