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punctuation: Definition and Much More from Answers.com

  • ️Thu Jul 25 2002

Punctuation is everything in written language other than the actual letters or numbers, including punctuation marks (listed at right), inter-word spaces, capitalization, and indentation.[1]

Punctuation marks are symbols that correspond to neither phonemes (sounds) of a language nor to lexemes (words and phrases), but which serve to indicate the structure and organization of writing, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading it aloud. See orthography.

In English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences. For example, "woman, without her man, is nothing," and "woman: without her, man is nothing," have greatly different meanings, as do "eats shoots and leaves" and "eats, shoots and leaves."[2]

The rules of punctuation vary with language, location, register and time, and are constantly evolving. Certain aspects of punctuation are stylistic and are thus the author's (or editor's) choice. Tachygraphic language forms, such as those used in online chat and text messages, may have wildly different rules.


Punctuation

apostrophe ( ’ ' )
brackets ( ), [ ], { }, < >
colon ( : )
comma ( , )
dashes ( ‒, –, —, ― )
ellipsis ( …, ... )
exclamation mark ( ! )
full stop/period ( . )
guillemets ( « » )
hyphen ( -, ‐ )
question mark ( ? )
quotation marks ( ‘ ’, “ ” )
semicolon ( ; )
slash/stroke ( / )
solidus ( ∕ )
Interword separation

spaces ( ) ( ) ( )
interpunct ( · )
General typography

ampersand ( & )
asterisk ( * )
at ( @ )
backslash ( \ )
bullet ( • )
caret ( ^ )
currency ( ¤ ) ¢, $, €, £, ¥, ₩, ₪
dagger/obelisk ( † ) ( ‡ )
degree ( ° )
inverted exclamation point ( ¡ )
inverted question mark ( ¿ )
number sign ( # )
numero sign ( № )
percent and related signs
( %, ‰, ‱ )
pilcrow ( )
prime ( ′ )
section sign ( § )
tilde/swung dash ( ~ )
umlaut/diaeresis ( ¨ )
underscore/understrike ( _ )
vertical/pipe/broken bar ( |, ¦ )
Uncommon typography

asterism ( ⁂ )
index/fist ( ☞ )
therefore sign ( ∴ )
lozenge ( ◊ )
interrobang ( ‽ )
irony mark ( ؟ )
reference mark ( ※ )
sarcasm mark (+ +)

History

The earliest writing had no capitalization, no spaces and no punctuation marks. This worked as long as the subject matter was restricted to a limited range of topics (for example, writing was initially used for recording business transactions). Expanding the use of writing to more abstract concepts required some way to disambiguate meanings. Until the eighteenth century, punctuation was principally an aid to reading aloud; after that time its development was as a mechanism for ensuring that the text made sense when read silently.[1]

The oldest document that uses punctuation is the Mesha Stele (9th century BC). This employs points between the words and horizontal strokes between the sense section as punctuation.

The Greeks were using punctuation marks consisting of vertically arranged dots - usually two (c.f. the modern colon) or three - in around the fifth century BC. Greek playwrights (e.g. Euripides and Aristophanes) used symbols to distinguish the ends of phrases in written drama: this essentially helped the play's cast to know when to pause. In particular, they used three different symbols to divide speeches, known as commas (indicated by a centred dot), colons (indicated by a dot on the base line), and periods (indicated by a raised dot).

The Romans (circa 1st century BC) also adopted symbols to indicate pauses.

Punctuation developed dramatically when large numbers of copies of the Christian Bible started to be produced. These were designed to be read aloud and the copyists began to introduce a range of marks to aid the reader, including indentation, various punctuation marks and an early version of initial capitals. St Jerome and his colleagues, who produced the Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin, developed an early system (circa 400 AD); this was considerably improved on by Alcuin. The marks included the virgule (forward slash) and dots in different locations; the dots were centred in the line, raised or in groups.

The use of punctuation was not standardized until after the invention of printing. Credit for introducing a standard system is generally given to Aldus Manutius and his grandson. They popularized the practice of ending sentences with the colon or full stop, invented the semicolon, made occasional use of parentheses, and created the modern comma by lowering the virgule.[2]

Other languages

Other European languages use much the same punctuation as English. The similarity is so strong that the few variations confuse a naïve English reader. Quotation marks are particularly variable across European languages. For example, in French, quotes would appear as: « Je suis fatigué. » (in French, each "double ponctuation", as the Guillemet, requires a Non-breaking space). In Greek, the question mark is written as a sign resembling the English semi-colon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (·), known as the ano teleia (άνω τελεία).

Arabic — written from right to left — uses a reversed question mark: ؟.

Originally Sanskrit had no punctuation. In the 1600s, Sanskrit and Marathi, both written in the Devanagari script, started using the vertical bar (|) to end a line of a prose and double vertical bars (||) to end the verse.

Chinese, Japanese, and Korean did not use punctuation before the modern era. The grammatical structure of sentences in classical writing is inferred from context. Most punctuation marks in modern Chinese, Japanese, and Korean have similar functions to their English counterparts; however, they often look different and have different customary rules.

Further information: East Asian Punctuation

Ethiopian languages, including Amharic, Tigrinya, Ge'ez, and Afaan Oromo, make use of these punctuation marks: space (፡), comma (፣), sentence end (።), semicolon (፤), colon (፥), preface colon (፦), question mark (፧), paragraph separator (፨).

Novel punctuation marks

A European patent application was filed, and published in 1992 under WO number WO9219458,[3] for two new punctuation marks: the "question comma" and the "exclamation comma". As of 2006 no patent has been issued for them, though.

Unicode

Apart from the ASCII punctuation marks in its Basic Latin range

 !"'()*,-./:;<>?[\]`{|}~

Unicode has the General Punctuation (U+2000–206F) and Supplemental Punctuation (U+E000–E0FF) ranges.

General Punctuation
Unicode.org chart (PDF)
U+ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
2000                       ​ ‌ ‍ ‎ ‏
2010 ‐ ‑ ‒ – — ― ‖ ‗ ‘ ’ ‚ ‛ “ ” „ ‟
2020 † ‡ • ‣ ․ ‥ … ‧ 
 
 ‪ ‫ ‬ ‭ ‮  
2030 ‰ ‱ ′ ″ ‴ ‵ ‶ ‷ ‸ ‹ › ※ ‼ ‽ ‾ ‿
2040 ⁀ ⁁ ⁂ ⁃ ⁄ ⁅ ⁆ ⁇ ⁈ ⁉ ⁊ ⁋ ⁌ ⁍ ⁎ ⁏
2050 ⁐ ⁑ ⁒ ⁓ ⁔ ⁕ ⁖ ⁗ ⁘ ⁙ ⁚ ⁛ ⁜ ⁝ ⁞  
2060 ⁠ ⁡ ⁢ ⁣ ⁤ ⁥ ⁦ ⁧ ⁨ ⁩      
Supplemental Punctuation
Unicode.org chart (PDF)
U+ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
E000 ⸀ ⸁ ⸂ ⸃ ⸄ ⸅ ⸆ ⸇ ⸈ ⸉ ⸊ ⸋ ⸌ ⸍ ⸎ ⸏
E010 ⸐ ⸑ ⸒ ⸓ ⸔ ⸕ ⸖ ⸗ ⸘ ⸙ ⸚ ⸛ ⸜ ⸝ ⸞ ⸟
E020 ⸠ ⸡ ⸢ ⸣ ⸤ ⸥ ⸦ ⸧ ⸨ ⸩ ⸪ ⸫ ⸬ ⸭ ⸮ ⸯ

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Todd, Loreto (2000). The Cassell Guide to Punctuation. Cassell, ISBN 978-0304349616.
  2. ^ a b Truss, Lynne (2003). Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Profile Books. ISBN 1-86197-612-7.
  3. ^ European Patent Office publication

Further reading

External links

The ISO basic Latin alphabet
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

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