☙ ⁂ ❧

 §1

In continuing my typographical voyage of discovery I chanced across the asterism, ⁂.  It can be used to mean that a title or author is withheld, thus the title of this blog post.  It can also indicate subchapter or minor breaks in text in a book. 

⁂

❦  The hedera mark is one of the oldest, going back to classical times.  Hedera means ivy in Latin, and the mark is an ivy leaf.  It was used to mark the pause at the end of paragraphs read out loud.  But over time it became a new paragraph indent mark as I have used it here.  It is also known as the fleuron and comes in rotated, ❧ , and reverse rotated, ☙ , forms. These forms are also used as designs on book or chapter title pages, as in this blog post title.

☞ The index, or manicule, was common from the Middle Ages onward but has almost died out today.  It is used in margins to bring attention to important text. 

❦  The section, §, symbol is used to point out a section of text, such as this one, §1 ¶ 4 (section 1, paragraph 4).  I have actually seen this used.  The sections in my work contract in Germany were marked with §. 

 §2

In this second section we are moving to more international marks.  

⁂

※  According to wikipedia currently, the reference mark,  ※, is used like an asterisk in Japanese typography.  Believe it or not, I have actually seen this mark used.  A friend of mine in college from India used it on the margins of his class notes to point out important things to remember, like the manicule above (and as I have used it here).  I asked him about it once and he said his school teacher told him to use it to mark important things to remember. 

❦  There is also the Japanese katakana sokuon, ツ.  In Japanese it is used to mark a long consonant sound.  However, in English, who needs more than one character for emoticons‽   ツ   is better than :-)

⁂

❦  And finally we turn to Arabic inspired emoticons.  There are based on the Arabic letter for "t" the ta,  ت . After the sokuon, ツ , I think this one is self explanatory.

Here is the ta marbuta, ة . Again, no explanation is necessary.  :o

And this is the ta with ring, ټ . This one is too good not to use!  :p