Riddle Me This: Question Marks In Vintage Photographs

The Riddler: “Riddle me this! There are three men an a boat with a pack of cigarettes and no matches. How did they manage to smoke?”
Robin: “They threw one cigarette overboard and the boat became a cigarette lighter.”

– The Question asked in Batman, 1966

 

 

The question mark says ‘What?’ It wants to know. In this gallery of photographs from collector Robert E. Jackson we look at the question mark. What does it mean..?

 

 

“The mark which you are to notice in this lesson is of this shape ? You see it is made by placing a little crooked mark over a period…. The name of this mark is the Question Mark, because it is always put after a question. Sometimes it is called by a longer and harder name. The long and hard name is the Interrogation Point.”

– The national second reader : containing preliminary exercises in articulation, pronunciation, and punctuation by Richard G. Parker and J. Madison Watson, 1857

 

 

“To be, or not to be, that is the question”

– Hamlet by William Shakespeare

 

 

Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge?

If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.

– The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

 

 

“It’s the question mark that comes with death that we can’t face, not the period.”
― Jodi Picoult, The Storyteller

 

 

“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”
― Bertrand Russell

 

 

How will I know if he really loves me?
I say a prayer with every heartbeat
I fall in love whenever we meet
I’m asking you ’cause you know about these things
How will I know if he’s thinking of me?
I try to phone but I’m too shy (can’t speak)
Falling in love is so bittersweet
This love is strong, why do I feel weak?

– Whitney Houston, How Will I Know?

 

 

 

I come home, in the mornin’ light
My mother says “When you gonna live your life right?”
Oh momma dear, we’re not the fortunate ones
And girls, they wanna have fun
Oh girls just wanna have fun…

– Cyndi Lauper, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

 

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

– The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

 

 

 

 

Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where’s the streetwise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night, I toss and I turn
And I dream of what I need
I need a hero

– Bonnie Tyler, Holding Out for a Hero

 

 

I bought these new heels’
Did my nails, had my hair done just right.
I thought this new dress was a sure bet
For romance tonight.
Well it’s perfectly clear
Between the TV and beer
I won’t get so much as a kiss.
As I head for the door
I turn around to be sure
Did I shave my legs for this?

– Did I Shave My Legs for This? by Deana Carter

 

 

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

– The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

 

 

 

 

More from the excellent Robert E. Jackson collection here – and on his Instagram page.