The section sign (§) is a typographicalcharacter for referencing individually numbered sections of a document; it is frequently used when citing sections of a legal code.[1] It is also known as the section symbol, section mark, double-s, or silcrow.[2][3] In other languages it may be called the "paragraph symbol" (for example, German: Paragrafzeichen).
Use
Former logo of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice
The section sign is often used when referring to a specific section of a legal code. For example, in Bluebook style, "Title 16 of the United States Code Section 580p" becomes "16 U.S.C. §580p".[4] The section sign is frequently used along with the pilcrow (orparagraph sign), ¶, to reference a specific paragraph 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.[5][6]
When duplicated, as §§, it is read as the plural "sections". For example, "§§13–21" would be read as "sections 13 through 21", much as pp. (pages) is the plural of p., meaning page.
It may also be used with footnotes when asterisk*, dagger†, and double dagger‡ have already been used on a given page.
It is common practice to follow the section sign with a non-breaking space so that the symbol is kept with the section number being cited.[1][7]: 212, 233
The section sign is itself sometimes a symbol of the justice system,[a][citation needed] in much the same way as the Rod of Asclepius is used to represent medicine. For example, Austrian courts use the symbol in their logo.
Keyboard entry
The sign has the Unicode code pointU+00A7§SECTION SIGN and many platforms and languages have methods to reproduce it.
Two possible origins are often posited for the section sign: most probably, that it is a ligature formed by the combination of two S glyphs (from the Latinsignumsectiōnis).[8][2][9][10] Some scholars, however, are skeptical of this explanation.[11]
^Garulli, Valentina (2018-10-09). "Lectional Signs in Greek Verse Inscriptions". In Petrovic, Andrej; Thomas, Edmund; Petrovic, Ivana (eds.). The Materiality of Text: Placement, Perception, and Presence of Inscribed Texts in Classical Antiquity (eBook). Brill Publishers. p. 106. doi:10.1163/9789004379435_006. ISBN978-90-04-37943-5. S2CID198732053.
Media related to Section signs at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of Section signs at Wiktionary
