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| § | |
|---|---|
W:§ | |
| In Unicode | U+00A7 § SECTION SIGN (§) |
| Related | |
| See also | U+00B6 ¶ PILCROW SIGN |
The section sign (§) is a typographical character 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
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 (or paragraph 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,[lower-alpha 1]Template:Fix/category[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.
Unicode
The section sign appeared in several early computer text encodings. It was placed at 0xA7 (167) in ISO-8859-1, a position that was inherited by United as code point U+00A7 § SECTION SIGN.
See also
- Scilicet ("it may be known") is sometimes rendered using a § mark instead of "viz."
Explanatory footnotes
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".