A difficult part of writing for me is when a single sentence–especially dialogue–contains two tones. It sounds best as a single sentence, but ending with a period, or alternative punctuation, looks wrong. As well as this, using two sentences also looks wrong.
I can’t think of a great example right now, but I know I’ve wanted punctuation that doesn’t exist before. I’ve had moments where it would have been so useful to have a “;!” and a “;?” mark.
I’ve occasionally seen the exclamation mark put inside of parentheses. I interpret it as the writer saying to the reader, “are you seeing this shit?”
Anyway, not sure if that’s what you’re going for here.
I’m only going for a semicolon with tonality. Overall, super simple and straightforward. It uses already existing marks with already established meaning, and provides a useful way to transcribe dialogue.
Why does this not exist;? Something so damned simple!
Edit: It’s not related to (!) or (?). I know, since I quite literally just used these a moment ago somewhere else. It is a little similar, but it’s different.
You don’t really need to link these clauses together, it sounds clunky. A question should probably be independent the vast majority of the time, and when it isn’t it should come last.
Like this: Something so damned simple; why does it not exist? I think it sounds way better and is easier to read. If you need to describe the tone, that could be a sentence that comes before or after. It’s easier to do this in dialogue than in thoughts, but still doable either way.
I think what you’re proposing is unnecessary when you could just rewrite it to flow better. I can guarantee you that there’s probably a better way to structure your sentence than simply inserting a new form of punctuation.
So, for the record, these things come into existence in the first place simply because someone, somewhere, starts using them. Language is something that drifts over time, and punctuation is no exception.
It’s a bit harder to do this digitally though since the glyphs aren’t just marks on paper.