*

October 11, 2020 3:29 PM

Challenged to write about a single Unicode character, I chose the humble asterisk.
posted by zamboni (11 comments total)

I am large, I contain multitudes!
posted by goinWhereTheClimateSuitsMyClothes at 3:39 PM on October 11, 2020

U B THE ASS TO RISK

U B THE STAR

*
posted by clew at 3:50 PM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Mary had a little car
She drove it far too brisk
Mary was a silly girl
Her little *
posted by Daily Alice at 4:16 PM on October 11, 2020 [8 favorites]

Nathan Hale said his only regret was that he only had one * for his country.
posted by MtDewd at 5:43 PM on October 11, 2020 [3 favorites]

No splat, bogus.
posted by zengargoyle at 7:01 PM on October 11, 2020

On my iPad, in Safari, in my History, the title of this post is a six pointed star instead of a five.
posted by jamjam at 7:14 PM on October 11, 2020

If you’re writing a book, you can re-use these two indicators on every page, but if you want more than two footnotes on the same page, you have to reach into some of the less rarely seen marks, such as the double dagger (a ‘diesis’); the triple dagger; the section sign; the pilcrow; the ‘parallel to’; and the asterism.

I have literally never seen a book use a section sign, pilcrow, or parallel symbol to call out a footnote. Is that really a thing?
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:41 PM on October 11, 2020

Well, it has been, it’s rare now afaik.

Has anyone seen emoji as footnote markers yet? I was told asterisk and obelisk suggested approving and disapproving commentary respectively. Think of the nuance possible now!
posted by clew at 10:59 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

* ctrl-F Vonnegut
0/0 matches

Hmm... so it goes :(
Too much of an * ?
posted by merlynkline at 12:39 AM on October 12, 2020 [3 favorites]

At this point we recommend that you read about string behavior in the Julia programming language, which rationally (but unconventionally) uses the asterisk for string concatenation, and has some strict but interesting assertions about unicode.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:03 PM on October 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Do people in other countries routinely pronounce it as "asterix," or is it just Canada?
posted by MatthewJohnson at 2:35 PM on October 13, 2020