What two places in the world have exclamation marks in their names?
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Make every day more interesting. Each day a surprising fact opens a world of fascinating information for you to explore. Did you know that….? 
| Original photo by Joe Doylem/ Alamy Stock Photo |
| Two places in the world use exclamation marks in their names. | Coincidentally, they both came into existence at roughly the same time, although their reasons for adopting the controversial punctuation differ as dramatically as their settings. The first, a village in southwestern England called Westward Ho!, sought to capitalize on the popularity of the identically named 1855 book by Charles Kingsley, who wrote lovingly of nearby Bideford. Founded as a vacation resort in the 1860s, the hamlet sprung up around the Westward Ho! Hotel, and remains a notable tourist destination thanks to its scenic coastline and famed Pebble Ridge.
The second place, a town in southern Quebec called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, isn't exactly a bustling tourist destination, although early explorers may have been happy to refresh themselves at nearby Lake Temiscouata. According to the Commission de Toponymie du Québec, the archaic French term "le haha" indicates an unexpected obstacle or a dead-end, likely referring to the lake's sharp change of direction. That doesn't explain the distinct punctuation in the name — no one's quite sure how or why that started. But no matter; this unassuming community, established in 1860 as a Catholic mission, has garnered an extra boost of attention since being honored for its double exclamation marks by Guinness World Records in 2018.
Honorable mention goes to the southwestern Ohio city of Hamilton, which became known as Hamilton! following a city council vote in May 1986. While the announcement drew plenty of pre-internet buzz, the United States Board on Geographic Names and mapmaker Rand McNally & Company refused to play along. Hamilton! officials nevertheless pressed forward with duly punctuated city seals, letterhead, signs, and the like for some time, although the federally unrecognized notation had disappeared from existence by the time a city clerk undertook a short-lived attempt to revive it in 2020.
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 | | German correspondence includes a salutation line that ends with an exclamation mark. | | |
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| German correspondence includes a salutation line that ends with an exclamation mark. |  |  |
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| A punctuation mark that combines an exclamation point and a question mark is called an __. |  |
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 | Numbers Don't Lie |
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 | | Words in the full title of the book "Westward Ho!" | | 36 |
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| | | Population of Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! in 2016 | | 1,292 |
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| | Exclamation marks used to indicate a brilliant move in chess annotation | | 2 |
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| | | Year the exclamation point got its own space on the keyboard | | 1970 |
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 | A celebrated comic book writer became known for his exclamation mark-punctuated middle initial. |
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| Were you to leaf through an old X-Men or Spider-Man comic, it wouldn't take long to notice the proliferation of exclamation marks in the dialogue bubbles. That had as much to do with the exaggerated scenarios portrayed in the storylines as it did with the reality of printing on cheap pulp paper, which left a tiny period impossible to see at times. In the early 1970s, new DC Comics writer Elliot S. Maggin quickly adjusted to placing an exclamation mark where a period usually went, to the point where he unwittingly typed Elliot S! Maggin on a Superman script. Intrigued, editor Julie Schwartz subsequently issued an order to the rest of the company that any mention of Maggin's name should thereby be "punctuated with an exclamation mark rather than a period from now on until eternity." Maggin went on to earn industry acclaim for his work on Superman over the next decade-plus, and he continues to sign off with the S! well after leaving the hyperbole of comics behind to pursue other careers in writing, teaching, and politics. | | |
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posted by June Lesley at 5:19 AM
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