To sit in between queries and declarative statements in conversational writing to indicate the tone. The mark would be a hybrid of the curl of a question mark with the twist of a comma.

Examples:

"Are you trying to imitate a famous author <quomma> or is this your normal writing style <conventional question mark>"

"You really like this opera (quomma) because I think that it sucks <conventional period>"

When recording long strings of dialog in conventional English the presence of the Quomma cues you to the emotional rise of the preceding words while allowing you smoothly transition into the remainder of the sentence.
-- WcW, May 30 2009

Semiquestion Semiquestion
Same thing? [jutta, May 31 2009]

I thought it was going to be a cross between a quotation mark and a comma, like this: ,,
-- jaksplat, May 30 2009


Perhaps you would use the "?" without the "." on the bottom.
-- FlyingToaster, May 31 2009


We've discussed a similar punctuation mark before under the name "Semiquestion". If they're different in your eyes, when would one use one, when the other?
-- jutta, May 31 2009


The semiquestion would be apropos when a complete questioning statement is followed by a complete declarative construction. The Quomma is used when a complete or fragmentary query is followed by a second complete or fragmentary construction. Similar to a comma the Quomma is intended to cause a brief pause without the abruptness of a full stop.

Sadly neither of these ideas seems to get any traction. Pedants hate change. Pedaints don't want the complexity of a new punctuation mark.
-- WcW, May 31 2009


That's the weirdest conspiracy theory I've heard all day.
-- jutta, May 31 2009


Allow me to be the first pedant to pedantize your proposed punctuation mark. In your first example sentence, the second phrase is also a question, and thus should end with either a quomma or a conventional question mark.
-- BunsenHoneydew, May 31 2009


Good point. I'll correct it.
-- WcW, May 31 2009


^ Yes.

Semiquestion alludes to this slightly, but I haven't seen it stated outright*: The question mark and exclamation mark both include a period, and that's what makes them terminal punctuation marks. If you swap that period for a comma, then one of them will be what both this idea and that one suggest, and the other will be the obvious exclamatory counterpart.

*before I clicked the patent application link on Semiquestion, that is. I didn't know you could patent punctuation marks.
-- notexactly, Aug 31 2019


//I didn't know you could patent punctuation marks// Really (Quomma, not Semiquestion) the ways people earn money these days.
-- wjt, Aug 31 2019


I just realized that the following combinations are necessary as well: semicolon + question mark, semicolon + exclamation mark. The question or exclamation mark part will probably have to be shortened to accommodate the period part of the semicolon.
-- notexactly, Sep 01 2019


[notexactly]; the semi-colon is a rare beast these days. Most people seem to have forgotten that it exists, let alone how to use it.
<Aside> a couple of years ago a friend of mine was doing a (basic-level) writing course, and a question from the teacher was whether anyone had used a semi-colon. </aside>
-- neutrinos_shadow, Sep 01 2019



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