The 500-year-long battle to make written irony easier to understand

"His creation of the irony mark, though, came by way of a project that he intended to be his crowning glory. His “Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language” described an artificial language capable of “the distinct expression of all things and notions that fall under discourse”. Just as we sometimes find written language inadequate to express of irony, so Wilkins found it inadequate for everything else besides, and his “real character” was designed to encompass all things and ideas the human mind could conceive of. His irony mark was little more than a footnote to this epic work, a suggestion that ironic statements might be punctuated with an inverted exclamation mark (¡). His was not only the first irony mark; it was also the first to fail."