{"id":15561,"date":"2021-10-07T06:01:26","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T06:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/?p=15561"},"modified":"2023-04-13T22:33:47","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T22:33:47","slug":"the-meaning-of-%c2%a7-section-mark-footnote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/the-meaning-of-%c2%a7-section-mark-footnote\/","title":{"rendered":"The Meaning of \u00a7 Explained in Great Detail with Examples"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>img#mv-trellis-img-1::before{padding-top:10.078125%; }img#mv-trellis-img-1{display:block;}img#mv-trellis-img-2::before{padding-top:9.21875%; }img#mv-trellis-img-2{display:block;}<\/style><p>There are many different types of symbols that we are used to seeing frequently.<\/p>\n<p>A hashtag has become a commonly used symbol on social media. For example, if you want to post a photo of a sunset and you want to make sure that people who like sunsets see it, you might add #sunset to your post.<\/p>\n<p>You might not know the word ampersand, but you probably know the symbol it refers to, &amp;, and you know that it means &ldquo;and.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>But what about when you see an unusual symbol like &sect;?<\/p>\n<p>We&rsquo;ll explain to you what this means and how you can use it below.<br>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>What is the Meaning of &sect;?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>&sect; is known as a &ldquo;section mark&rdquo; and is used to indicate a new section, particularly in legal documents. It can also be used to indicate a footnote after an asterisk and single and double daggers have been used.<\/strong><br>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The origin of &sect; remains a secret<\/h2>\n<p>While we know that &sect; has been in use for hundreds of years, we don&rsquo;t know its exact origins.<\/p>\n<p>It has a Latin name, signum sectionis. This would be abbreviated as the letter S twice, and if you look at the symbol, you can see that it looks like an S on top of another S.<\/p>\n<p>However, this does not necessarily mean that this is the origin of the symbol, and even if it is, we do not know what its original meaning was.<\/p>\n<p>There are phrases we use today that have survived from Latin, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/et-als-vs-et-al-in-academic-writing\/\">et al.<\/a>, but the &sect; is not like those.<\/p>\n<p>Yet another speculation is that it comes from the ancient Greek.<\/p>\n<p>In ancient Greece, scribes used a selection of punctuation marks in various ways, and &sect; might have been one of them.<\/p>\n<p>But we aren&rsquo;t sure about that either.<\/p>\n<p>We do know that it has been used a section mark since the 1200s.<\/p>\n<p>While it is usually called a &ldquo;section mark&rdquo; in the United States, it is sometimes referred to as a &ldquo;paragraph mark&rdquo; in some other countries.<\/p>\n<p>In the U.S., the paragraph mark is usually considered to be the symbol &para;.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s also known as the pilcrow, and in its contemporary usage, you might see it in legal documents or as a proofreading mark to indicate that a new paragraph should be formed.<\/p>\n<p>Be sure that you don&rsquo;t confuse it with &sect; since they do have different meanings.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>&sect; in use<\/h2>\n<p>There are a few ways that you might see &ldquo;&sect;&rdquo; used. Some of those are standard, and some are more unusual.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Examples of using &sect; in a sentence to refer to sections<\/h3>\n<p>You would use &sect; in writing about sections, and in particular, you would see it used when writing about different sections of legal code.<\/p>\n<p>For example, instead of writing &ldquo;Title 12 of the United States Code Section 4,&rdquo; you would just write &ldquo;12 United States Code &sect; 4&rdquo; or &ldquo;12 U.S.C. &sect; 4.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>If you were an attorney writing a legal document that referred to many different codes, as you can imagine, this would save you time.<\/p>\n<p>If you wanted to refer to multiple sections, you would write &sect; twice.<\/p>\n<p>Here&rsquo;s what that might look like:<\/p>\n<p>This information can be found in 4 U.S.C. &sect;&sect; 101 &ndash; 126.<\/p>\n<p>When you see this, you know it means that you need to look in Title 4 of the United States Code, sections 101-126.<\/p>\n<p>You might want to use a combination of the section and the paragraph symbol to be even more specific about where to find information:<\/p>\n<p>See &sect; 37 &para; 5.<\/p>\n<p>If you saw the above, you would know to look for section 37, paragraph 5.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Examples of using &sect; to refer to a footnote<\/h3>\n<p>There are a few ways that footnotes can be indicated in text. Footnotes are always written in superscript rather than regular script, meaning that they are small characters printed just above the type.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, a number is used. When this is the case, the first footnote gets a 1, the second footnote gets a 2 and so on.<\/p>\n<p>Another way is to use what you might know as a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/star-symbol-name\/\">star symbol<\/a><\/strong>, also called an asterisk.<\/p>\n<p>Here&rsquo;s what it looks like: *. If you saw this symbol, you would then look at the bottom of the page where there would be another asterisk followed by the footnote in small print.<\/p>\n<p>What if you need more than one footnote on a page?<\/p>\n<p>You would then use a dagger, &dagger;, for your second footnote.<\/p>\n<p>And what about a third and fourth footnote on the same page?<\/p>\n<p>The third footnote would get a double dagger, &dagger;&dagger;.<\/p>\n<p>Then, for the fourth footnote, you would use the section mark.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, the fourth footnote on a page might look like this:<\/p>\n<p><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-15573 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-%C2%A7-Example-1..jpg\" alt=\"How to use &sect; Example 1.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"129\" srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1..jpg 854w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-300x30.jpg 300w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-1024x103.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-768x77.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-735x74.jpg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-335x34.jpg 335w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-347x35.jpg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-520x52.jpg 520w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-640x65.jpg 640w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-960x97.jpg 960w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-1080x109.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) calc(100vw - 20px), 720px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1..jpg\"><\/noscript><img loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-15573 size-full eager-load\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201280%20129'%3E%3Crect%20width='1280'%20height='129'%20style='fill:%23e3e3e3'\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" alt=\"How to use &sect; Example 1.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"129\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) calc(100vw - 20px), 720px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1..jpg\" id=\"mv-trellis-img-1\" data-src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-%C2%A7-Example-1..jpg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1..jpg 854w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-300x30.jpg 300w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-1024x103.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-768x77.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-735x74.jpg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-335x34.jpg 335w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-347x35.jpg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-520x52.jpg 520w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-640x65.jpg 640w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-960x97.jpg 960w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-1.-1080x109.jpg 1080w\" data-svg=\"1\" data-trellis-processed=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>A footnote can give you additional information or can refer you to the source of the information in the main text.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/how-to-use-as-a-result-in-a-sentence\/\">As a result<\/a><\/strong>, at the bottom of the page that included the above footnote, you might see something like this:<\/p>\n<p><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-15575 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-%C2%A7-Example-2..jpg\" alt=\"How to use &sect; Example 2.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"118\" srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2..jpg 854w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-300x28.jpg 300w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-1024x94.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-768x71.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-735x68.jpg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-335x31.jpg 335w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-347x32.jpg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-520x48.jpg 520w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-640x59.jpg 640w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-960x89.jpg 960w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-1080x100.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) calc(100vw - 20px), 720px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2..jpg\"><\/noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-15575 size-full lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-%C2%A7-Example-2..jpg\" alt=\"How to use &sect; Example 2.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"118\" srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2..jpg 854w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-300x28.jpg 300w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-1024x94.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-768x71.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-735x68.jpg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-335x31.jpg 335w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-347x32.jpg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-520x48.jpg 520w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-640x59.jpg 640w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-960x89.jpg 960w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2.-1080x100.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) calc(100vw - 20px), 720px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/How-to-use-&sect;-Example-2..jpg\" id=\"mv-trellis-img-2\" data-trellis-processed=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Examples of some unusual uses of &sect;<\/h3>\n<p>There are a few other, less common ways you might see &sect; used.<\/p>\n<p>Because it is most closely associated with legal documents, you might see it as a symbol of the law.<\/p>\n<p>For example, if you look up gifts for lawyers online, you might see T-shirts and other items printed with &sect;, standing on its own.<\/p>\n<p>A legal body or law firm might use it in some part of its logo.<\/p>\n<p>It can be used in playful ways as well.<\/p>\n<p>For example, there are versions of the popular game Sim City that use &sect; as a currency sign in the game in the same way that <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/dollar-sign-before-or-after-number\/\" title=\"$\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">$<\/a> is used to show dollars, &pound; stands for pounds or &euro; means euros.<\/p>\n<p>In the classic Czech novel &ldquo;The Good Soldier &Scaron;vejk,&rdquo; written in the early 1920s, the writer Jaroslav Ha&scaron;ek used &sect; throughout the Czech version to indicate bureaucracy although when the book was translated into English, it was turned into the word &ldquo;red tape.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Language is all about innovation!<\/p>\n<p>You can be playful in your use of &sect; as well, but make sure that it&rsquo;s reasonably clear what you mean by it, as in the examples above.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>How do you write a &sect; symbol?<\/h2>\n<p>Sometimes, the easiest way to write an unusual symbol is to simply find an example of online and copy and paste it into the document you&rsquo;re writing.<\/p>\n<p>However, if you need to use this symbol frequently, this might not be practical, and it can be helpful to know the keyboard shortcut.<\/p>\n<p>Keyboard shortcuts can differ across different devices and even countries, but if you are writing a document that frequently uses &sect;, chances are you doing it on a computer and not a device like your phone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Windows shortcut for &sect; is Alt + 0167. The Mac shortcut is Option+6.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are many different types of symbols that we are used to seeing frequently. A hashtag has become a commonly used symbol on social media. For example, if you want to post a photo of a sunset and you want to make sure that people who like sunsets see it, you might add #sunset to &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable-in-feed":false,"article-schema-type":"Article","disable-critical-css":false,"_convertkit_action_broadcast_export":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,1117],"tags":[852,853],"class_list":["post-15561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-vocabulary","tag-852","tag-section-mark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15561"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25108,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15561\/revisions\/25108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}