Pilcrow

Uncommon card · No. 121057

In typography, the pilcrow (¶) is a grapheme used to identify a paragraph; the name is a vernacular form of paragraph, showing dissimilation (compare Old French pelagraphe) and folk-etymological alteration. In editorial production the pilcrow typographic character is also known as the paragraph mark, the paragraph sign, the paragraph symbol, the paraph, and the blind P. In writing and editorial practice, authors and editors use the pilcrow grapheme to indicate the start of separate paragraphs, and to identify a new paragraph within a long block of text without paragraph indentions, as in the book An Essay on Typography (1931), by Eric Gill. In the Middle Ages, the practice of rubrication (type in red-ink) used a red pilcrow to indicate the beginning of a different train of thought within the author's narrative without paragraphs. The letterform of the pilcrow resembles a minuscule q or a mirrored majuscule P, with a usually-doubled backbone reaching from the descender to the ascender height...

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