Tofus, interpuncts, and manicules: how well do you know your typographic symbols?
Have you ever struggled to name the symbol you mean when talking typography? Here are my top ten names for the symbols we see all the time but might rarely need to label!
Recently, I was writing a covering email to accompany some book proofs I was returning after a lengthy proofread. In the proofs, there were quite a few instances of the missing character symbol (), and I wanted to flag them up for the editor and let her know I’d marked them with a margin note of [?]. But how should an editorial professional refer to that symbol? Surely, I thought, ‘the missing character symbol’ has a proper name I can use (a) to indicate that I know what I’m talking about and (b) to avoid any ambiguity?
Indeed it does.
The symbol is ‘officially’ known as .notdef, i.e. ‘not defined’. But much to my amusement, I discovered that it is informally known as a ‘tofu’, for obvious reasons. Excellent.
A few weeks previously, I’d also had cause to introduce someone else to the name ‘pilcrow’ – the paragraph symbol (¶).
So, because knowing and sharing these names is both the sort of geeky stuff I enjoy and an excellent way to demonstrate one’s professional credentials/win a pub quiz if this round ever comes up (I live in hope), here are my top ten typographic symbol names, along with some info about how the symbols are used.
Top ten typographic symbol names
How many of these do you know?
10. Ampersand
A nice easy one to start with – the ampersand (&). I love an ornate ampersand. It’s also a very pleasing word to say. You may know that the shape of the ampersand comes from the French ‘et’. This is more obvious in some ampersands than others.
9. Pilcrow
The paragraph symbol (¶). One of the first things many copy-editors do when starting work on a manuscript is to delete all the superfluous pilcrows, becuase it’s usually best practice to use paragraph styles and/or page breaks to create the spacing you want, rather than just pressing return repeatedly.
8. Silcrow
The section symbol (§). Sometimes used as a reference marker once you’ve worked your way through asterisks and daggers (the correct order for these being *, †, ‡, §, ¶, ||). Looks a bit like the mildly alarming rotary blade you get on heavy-duty weed-clearing garden equipment.
7. Hyphen, en-dash, em-dash
I’ve grouped these three together beause it’s easiest to explain them by defining their different jobs. Note that I’m talking here about British English usage, because others (especially US English) use them differently.
The hyphen (-) joins words together, often adjective phrases, e.g. higgledy-piggledy.
The en-dash (–) is used unspaced for number ranges, e.g. pages 203–16. It’s also used – with spaces either side – like parentheses (brackets).
The em-dash (—) is rarely used in British English, but is much more common in US English (and therefore in AI-generated content). Exceptions are when writing interrupted speech (‘I was just in the middle of tell—’) and to indicate a partial redaction of a word (‘I told Mr S— exactly what I thought of him’).
6. Interpunct
Like a mid-line bullet point, used as a divider. I used to use them in the description of my services: writing • editing • proofreading.
Interpuncts are often used on multilingual signs to indicate a separation.
5. Pipe (vertical bar)
Fairly obviously, it looks like a drainpipe. Used in a similar way to the interpunct, but also in all kinds of complicated ways in maths and science.
In Sanskrit, it works like a full stop and is called a danda, and a double danda is the equivalent of a pilcrow. (This has surely got to be worth extra marks in the pub quiz.)
4. Guillemets
Guillemets are the angle brackets used in some languages (particularly French, but also Greek, Spanish, German, Russian and other languages) where English uses quote marks. They’re not typically used in English, but it’s another nice one to say, in your best French accent: gee-em-ey
3. Fleuron
Also known as the ‘printer’s flower’, the fleuron (❦) is a decorative divider that signifies a change of subject or perspective. If you want to spend a happy hour online, search for images of fleurons. You’re bound to find some stunners.
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2. Tofu
A glyph is the shape of a character in a particular typeface, and a .notdef glyph is a particular character that is used when this doesn’t work (often because the character isn’t available in that typeface). The empty rectangle variant is the one that’s particularly tofuesque, but I’m told they’ll all answer to that name.
1. Manicule
The pointing finger character (☞) is used to draw the reader’s attention to something, such as the need to turn the page. There’s a certain comedy value to the manicule – a bit like the enormous foot in the title sequence of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (☟). For this reason, it’s my favourite.
How many did you know?
Whether this was new to you or you already knew your silcrow from your fleuron, I hope there was some new nuggest of new information there for you. And if you need a writer or editor who knows their way around this stuff, you know where to find me. I’ll be the one basking (for one week only) in my pub-quiz-champion glory.