The Utility of Corner Symbols
Corner symbols range from punctuation marks in East Asian languages to crucial operators in mathematics and retro-style graphic design elements.
Common Applications
- Asian Quotation Marks (「 ... 」): In Japanese and Traditional Chinese, these corner brackets function exactly like English quotation marks ("..."). The double corners (『 ... 』) are used for quotes within quotes or book titles.
- Floor and Ceiling Functions: In math, ⌊ x ⌋ (Floor) means rounding a number *down* to the nearest integer, while ⌈ x ⌉ (Ceiling) means rounding *up*.
- Box Drawing: Before modern graphics, computers used characters like ┌ and ┘ to draw boxes, tables, and frames in text interfaces (CLI). These are still popular for creating "text art" boxes in social media bios.
Kaomoji Usage
In Japanese Kaomoji (text emoticons), corner symbols are often used to represent hands raising something up or framing a face, adding structure to the emote, such as Hands Up └(^o^)┘ or Don't Care ┐( ˘_˘)┌ (Smug Kaomoji)