An #academic question, #linguistics or English? My #semiotics friends? I have been using $#!+ as a typographic substitute for a certain scatalogical term for, 20 years or longer. (And according to the search engines, I am alone in this.) What is this called, properly? It similar to using strings of emoticons to mean something like this 🌾🐍🌾 (snake in the grass) but not the same.Not my field I am just curious. It is definitely not a neologism as in santorum. Is it? (Sorry for the crappy post.)
