The section sign (§) is a

typographical Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spac ...

character for referencing individually numbered

sections Section, Sectioning, or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents ** Section sig ...

of a document; it is frequently used when citing sections of a

legal code A code of law, also called a law code or legal code, is a systematic collection of statutes. It is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the co ...

. It is also known as the section symbol, section mark, double-s, or silcrow. In other languages it may be called the "paragraph symbol" (for example, ). The section sign typically appears akin to a letter S stacked on top of another S.

Use

The section sign is often used when referring to a specific section of a

. For example, in

Bluebook ''The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation'' is a style guide that prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States. It is taught and used at a majority of Law school in the United States, law schools in the United S ...

style, "

Title 16 of the United States Code Title 16 of the United States Code outlines the role of conservation in the United States Code. * —National Parks, Military Parks, Monuments, and Seashores (the " National Park Service Organic Act") * — Historic Sites, Buildings, Objects, ...

Section 580p" becomes "16 U.S.C. §580p". The section sign is frequently used along with the ''

pilcrow In typography, the pilcrow (¶) is a glyph used to identify a paragraph. 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 ...

'' (or ''paragraph sign''), , to reference a specific

paragraph A paragraph () is a self-contained unit of discourse in writing dealing with a particular point or idea. Though not required by the orthographic conventions of any language with a writing system, paragraphs are a conventional means of organizing ...

within a section of a document. While is usually read in spoken English as the word "section", many other languages use the word "paragraph" exclusively to refer to a section of a document (especially of legal text), and use other words to describe a paragraph in the English sense. Consequently, in those cases "§" may be read as "''paragraph"'', and may occasionally also be described as a "paragraph sign", but this is a description of its usage, not a formal name. When duplicated, as , it is read as the plural "sections". For example, "§§13–21" would be read as "sections 13 through 21", much as (pages) is the plural of , meaning

page Page most commonly refers to: * Page (paper), one side of a leaf of paper, as in a book Page, PAGE, pages, or paging may also refer to: Roles * Page (assistance occupation), a professional occupation * Page (servant), traditionally a young m ...

. It may also be used with footnotes when

asterisk The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

dagger A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually one or two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a cutting or stabbing, thrusting weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or ...

, and

double dagger A dagger, obelisk, or obelus is a typographical mark that usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used. The symbol is also used to indicate death (of people) or extinction (of species or languages). It is one of the mo ...

have already been used on a given page. It is common practice to follow the section sign with a

non-breaking space In word processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space (), also called NBSP, required space, hard space, or fixed space ...

so that the symbol is kept with the section number being cited. The section sign is itself sometimes a symbol of the justice system, in much the same way as the

Rod of Asclepius In Greek mythology, the Rod of Asclepius (⚕; , , , sometimes also spelled Asklepios), also known as the Staff of Aesculapius and as the asklepian, is a serpent-entwined rod wielded by the Greek god Asclepius, a deity associated with healing ...

is used to represent medicine. For example,

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n courts use the symbol in their logo.

Unicode

The section sign appeared in several early computer text encodings. It was placed at (167) in

ISO-8859-1 ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, ''Information technology—8-bit computing, 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character (computing), character sets—Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1'', is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character enc ...

, a position that was inherited by Unicode as

code point A code point, codepoint or code position is a particular position in a Table (database), table, where the position has been assigned a meaning. The table may be one dimensional (a column), two dimensional (like cells in a spreadsheet), three dime ...

. Representation of the sign is an artistic decision within the overall design language of the typeface (or

computer font A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for printi ...

): the two more commonly seen forms are shown here. In all cases, the sign is encoded by U+00A7.

Origin

Two possible origins are often posited for the section sign: most probably, that it is a

ligature Ligature may refer to: Language * Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy) * Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words Medicine * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...

formed by the combination of two S glyphs (from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

'' signum sectiōnis''). Some scholars, however, are skeptical of this explanation. Others have theorized that it is an adaptation of the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

(''

paragraphos A paragraphos (, , from , 'beside', and , 'to write') was a mark in ancient Greek punctuation, marking a division in a text (as between speakers in a dialogue or drama) or drawing the reader's attention to another division mark, such as the two d ...

''), a catch-all term for a class of

punctuation marks Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of written text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, consisti ...

used by

scribes A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as secretarial and ...

with diverse shapes and intended uses. The modern form of the sign, with its modern meaning, has been in use since the

15th century The 15th century was the century which spans the Julian calendar dates from 1 January 1401 (represented by the Roman numerals MCDI) to 31 December 1500 (MD). In Europe, the 15th century includes parts of the Late Middle Ages, the Early Re ...

In literature

Jaroslav Hašek Jaroslav Hašek (; 1883–1923) was a Czechs, Czech writer, Humorism, humorist, Satire, satirist, journalist, Bohemianism, bohemian, first anarchist and then communist, and commissar of the Red Army against the Czechoslovak Legion. He is best k ...

's ''

The Good Soldier Švejk ''The Good Soldier Švejk'' () is an unfinished satirical dark comedy novel by Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek, published in 1921–1923, about a good-humored, simple-minded, middle-aged man who appears to be enthusiastic to serve Austria-Hungary i ...

'', the symbol is used repeatedly to mean "

bureaucracy Bureaucracy ( ) is a system of organization where laws or regulatory authority are implemented by civil servants or non-elected officials (most of the time). Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments ...

". In his English translation of 1930,

Paul Selver (Percy) Paul Selver (22 March 1888 – 6 April 1970) was an English writer and translator. A prolific translator of Czech literature into English, he was best known as the translator of Karel Čapek.Robert M. Philmus, 'Matters of Translation ...

translated it as "

red tape Red tape is a concept employed to denounce excessive or redundant regulation and adherence to formal rules for creating unnecessary constraints on action and decision-making. The occurrence of red tape is usually associated with governments but a ...

Explanatory footnotes

References

External links

* * {{navbox punctuation Punctuation Typographical symbols