Everything about Dagger Typography totally explained
A
dagger (
†, †,
U+2020) is a typographical symbol or
glyph. It is also called an
obelus,
cross, or
obelos, from a
Greek word meaning "roasting spit" or "needle", or
obelisk, its
diminutive (see
obelisk). A
double dagger (
‡, ‡, U+2021) is a variant with two "handles", and is also called a
diesis or
Cross of Lorraine.
History
The symbol was first used in
liturgical books of the
Roman Catholic Church, marking a minor intermediate pause in the chanting of Psalm verses (the major intermediate pause was marked with an asterisk) or the point at which the chanting of the Psalm was taken up after an introductory antiphon whose words were identical to the opening words of the Psalm.
Usage
The dagger is used to indicate a
footnote, in the same way an
asterisk is. However, the dagger is only used for a second footnote when an
asterisk is already used. A third footnote employs the double dagger. Additional footnotes are somewhat inconsistent and represented by a variety of symbols, for example, parallels (||) and the
pilcrow (¶), some of which are nonexistent in early modern
typography. Partly due to this, in modern literature,
superscript numerals are used in the place of pictorial symbols. Some texts use asterisks and daggers alongside superscripts, using the former for per-page footnotes and the latter for
endnotes.
The dagger shouldn't be confused with the "
box drawings light vertical and horizontal" (
┼,
U+253C) nor
palatal click (U+01C2).
Since it also represents the
Christian cross, in certain predominantly
Christian regions, the mark is used in a text before or after the
name of a deceased person or the
date of
death, as in Christian
grave headstones. For this reason, it shouldn't be used as a footnote mark next to the name of a living person. The religious connotations of the symbol can also make this usage inappropriate for persons from non-Christian cultures.
In
Mathematics and, more often,
Physics, a dagger is used to denote the
Hermitian adjoint of an operator; for example,
A† denotes the adjoint of
A. This notation is sometimes replaced with an
asterisk, especially in Mathematics. An operator is said to be Hermitian if
A† =
A.
In
textual criticism, and hence some editions of dated texts, daggers are used to enclose disputed text.
In
chess notation, the dagger may be suffixed to a move to signify the move resulted in a check, and a double dagger is used to denote checkmate. This is a stylistic variation on the more common '+' (plus sign) for a check and '++' (double plus) or '#' (number sign) for checkmate.
In
chemistry, the double dagger is used to indicate a
transition state molecule.
On a
cricket scorecard or team list, the dagger indicates the team's
wicket-keeper(External Link
)
The double dagger shouldn't be confused with the
cross of Lorraine or the
patriarchal cross.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Dagger Typography'.
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