...er­ately com­bine char­ac­ters. “The in­ter­ro­b­ang was eas­ily made with a back-space and over-type”, as Ned told me via email, which is re­mark­able in it­self. But this quirk of type­writer op­er­a­tion also al­lowed the con­struc­tion of the fabled quasiquote, where a hy­phen and quo­ta­tion mark were over­struck to pro­duce something like "this", or 'this', and which en­cap­su­lated an ab­bre­vi­ated or [[paraphrased]] quo­ta­tion rather a ver­batim re­port of the speak­er’s words. Ned’s ex­planation of the qua...

I have wanted just this punctuation mark! Lapsing into italics doesn't give quite the right meaning, since it overlaps with fictional thoughts and therefore tends to impute intent.