The difference between “let us eat Grandma” and “let us eat, Grandma” is huge. That’s what punctuation does: it saves lives.
When you write, you set words in motion. Then they are on their own. Punctuation allows these words to tell their own story. Otherwise, if the reader had to guess each time she read a sentence, she might throw the book (or cellphone) away. Punctuation brings clarity to writing. Without it, everything we write, from short-stories to novels, news stories, and complex technical and legal documents, would be susceptible to misinterpretation and confusion. And you don’t want that, do you?
Before we learn more about punctuation – which we would in the future posts – let’s take some time to understand the history of it. Punctuation as it exists today is a comparatively recent innovation. The invention of the printing press made it necessary to have a well-defined system for using the various marks that had existed for centuries. For the most part, the personal preferences of scribes had determined how these marks were written. With the dawn of a new era of book reproduction came the systematic approach to recording and sharing the written word. A system of punctuating those words for the sake of clarity and enhanced understanding was also a necessity.
The earliest writings dating back to the dawn of the Latin alphabet, introduced by the Etruscans in the 8th century BCE, contained strings of letters with no spacing between words or sentences and no punctuation marks of any kind. The first punctuation mark to be used was the dot, or period. Its original purpose was to provide a resting place for the eye and to help a little in grouping the letters into clauses and sentences. It was used at the end of a sentence to indicate abbreviations and as an aesthetic ornament between the letters of an inscription.
Sometimes a slanted mark (/) or a double dot (: or ..) was used to indicate the end of an important section of the writing or even of a sentence. Eventually, spaces were introduced to show the grouping of letters and words. At first, only the sentences were set off by spaces, then the long words, and finally all words.
During the manuscript period, different schools of copyists and even different writers used different marks and systems of pointing. For a considerable time, the location of the dot indicated its force. Placed high, it had the force of a period. Placed in a middle position, it had the force of a comma. Placed low (.), it had the force of a semicolon. The foregoing rules were not universally observed, however.
The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenbergb (1398 – 1468), a German blacksmith, introduced new requirements. Early printers used a period at the end of sentences; the colon; and sometimes the slanting line (/). A reversed semicolon was used as a question mark. Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton’s successor in the printing business in London, used five punctuation marks in 1509; the period, semicolon, comma, interrogative, and parenthesis.
The systemisation of punctuation is due mainly to Aldus Manutius, who had opened a printing office in Venice in 1494. The great printers of the early day were scholars as well. For years, the main concern of the printer was the sharing of ancient writings with the world, so they were required to be students, critics, and editors of the old manuscripts they printed. They borrowed most of their punctuation from Greek grammarians, but sometimes adapted the meanings. The semicolon, for instance, is the Greek mark of interrogation, or question mark.
There are two systems of punctuation in use in the English language, known as the close and open systems. The former uses points wherever possible and of importance in precise composition of every sort, such as laws, contracts and legal documents. The open, or easy, system, omits points wherever possible, and it is used in common forms of composition.
With that in mind, we will discuss the specific rules and uses of punctuation in the upcoming posts. Cheers!
Kalampedia 