#GetFact'd: Is there a punctuation mark that could've saved billions?
'GetFact'd' with these interesting facts, including a fossil word, which is a word that is broadly obsolete...
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1.
There is a punctuation mark that could have saved billions of misunderstandings, but nobody uses it. The reverse question mark ؟ indicates sarcasm.
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2.
When the first tea rooms opened up in England in the 1700s, buyers would attend the tea auctions and there would only be a certain amount of time available to place your bid.
In order to set a time limit, a pin would be stuck into a candle and then the candle would be allowed to burn down.
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Buyers could place bids until the level of the candle reached as far down as the pin, at which stage the pin would fall out.
If there were no more bids at this stage, the room would be silent and you would be able to hear a pin drop. Hence this English idiom was born.
3.
A fossil word is a word that is broadly obsolete but remains in current use due to its presence within an idiom, word sense, or phrase. Examples are lo, as in "lo and behold", ado, as in "without further ado", and fro, as in "to and fro".
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Main image attribution: ECR