On Friday we asked for new punctuation marks. The old ones, like that comma right there or the period that ended the last sentence, suddenly seemed insufficient. We wanted more … but we didn’t want to lift a finger to get them—and that’s why we enlisted our readers.

They came, saw, reassessed existing punctuation, and went to work.

Some of the new marks were pure slapstick (@cehickman’s slapdash, which was not designed but was described as “useful when you just can’t be bothered to give your sentence structure too much thought”) or @krissyt67’s comalipses (“comma w/ ellipses stacked on top for when a writer loses their train of thought & falls into a deep asleep”).

Some drew upon celebrity affectations. From @rockskimmer came the Tilde Swinton, which would precede any sentence that’s to be read with frigid confidence. And @FastLaugh got one, and then some, with his suggestion: “The. Staccato. Is. A. Period. Appearing. After. Every. Word. Alternately. Known. As. The. Captain. James. T. Kirk. Mark.”

Some amended existing punctuation technology: @AlexColangelo derided the interrobang, proposing that there be a new way of expressing incredulity, and @ponder76 proposed putting a comma at the bottom of the exclamation point instead of a period. The result would be used to imply dramatic pauses.

On to the best. There were inventions specific to the online world, such as @seancarman’s smÅ¿ticon, which consisted of “two colons on either side of an internet comment identifying it as an out-of-character expression of rage.” There were inventions characteristic of our age, such as @madbeyond’s sollipsis, “a personalized ellipsis points shifting the discussion back to me me me.” But for the winner we went beyond rage and self-absorption to @toddlerlit’s bad-writing apology mark. The bad-writing apology mark is simple: as its inventor explains, it merely requires you to surround a sentence with a pair of tildes when “you’re knowingly using awkward wording but don’t have time to self-edit.”

The bad-writing apology mark, which we’ll call the bwam, was one of several excellent suggestions by the same reader: others included the TUI, or Texting Under the Influence mark, and the self-censorship mark, which lets a writer indicate that there’s more to say but no comfortable way to say it. But the bad-writing apology mark took the crown because it’s in such demand in today’s breathless and poorly composed world. In fact, we’ll use it right here to explain this week’s winner: ~Real comedy mixed with real thinking is rare and and glad to pick it!~