xii Terms Used Without Accompanying Explanation

Original matter. An author's own words, as opposed to quoted matter.

Parenthesis. Used of structure. The points usually called parentheses are here called curves.

Point, pointed. Punctuation mark, punctuated.

Roman. Roman type; perpendicular type, the most familiar style of letter.

Roman quote. In roman type and enclosed in quote marks. Roman open. In roman type and not enclosed in quote marks.

Solid matter. Matter not leaded. "Leading" means the insertion of metal strips between lines of type for the sake of white space. Solid typewritten matter is sometimes called single-spaced.

Structural points. Here used of period, question and exclamation marks, colon, semicolon, comma, dash (except ellipsis dash and en dash), and curves.

Superior figures or letters. Figures or letters occupying the upper part of the type body, with white space showing below.

Suspension. Checking, holding attention, carrying the reader over intervening parenthesis, interruption

whether intended or not.

Suspension periods. Translation of French points de suspension. Periods, usually in groups of three and usually spaced in English text, employed not to mark ellipsis from a quotation but to suggest an interruption or meditative pause.

Text. Straight matter, as opposed to extracts, tables, and footnotes.

MODERN PUNCTUATION

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A HARVARD professor of English, the author of a well known textbook on English composition, has said of punctuation, "I have never yet come across a book on the subject which did not leave me more puzzled than it found me.'

If the words are a warning, they are also an invitation. Punctuation ought to be understood, because it is bound up with the important social art of communication in writing. And it need be no more mysterious than harmony of tone or color-matters at least equally difficult, yet successfully reduced to useful theory.

The reasons why punctuation is so commonly not understood, or understood wrong, are not far to seek. For one thing, textbook writers have practically divorced punctuation from its relation to the larger units of composition. As ordinarily presented, punctuation is concerned almost exclusively with the sentence. It is commonly set forth by aid of single sentences isolated from their context.

The single-sentence method is legitimate only in a measure. There are numerous questions of pointing which can be settled only with reference to groups larger than the sentence. Between successive statements there may be a full stop, a comma, a semicolon, sometimes a colon or

a. dash; and there is no safe choice which ignores the meaning and movement of the passage. In questions of pointing, relations within the sentence are not always decisive.

The current rules, moreover, are too numerous and too rigid. A desk book in wide use catalogues twenty-three cases in which the comma is "required" and six cases in which it is not required. Here are three of the twenty-three prescriptions: the comma is required to separate parenthetical expressions from the context; it is required in cases of ellipsis; it is required "before not, when introducing an antithetical clause." But what are the facts? To group parenthetical clauses, commas may or may not be required; there are parenthetical clauses with curves or dashes, and some not pointed at all. The ellipsis comma, in the proper sense of the word ellipsis, is rare and usually awkward. Before an antithetical clause beginning with not, a comma is often unnecessary or clumsy. If English were a dead language like Ciceronian Latin, there might be a full set of positive rules; but English is a living language.

There are yet other misleading rules in currency. We are told, for example, that "when the members of a compound sentence are complex in construction or contain commas, one must use a semicolon. The rule is misleading because too general. There are numerous cases in which the comma is a sufficient compounding point in spite of other commas in either or both of the clauses.

According to another tradition repeated in recent books, a long subject, especially if an infinitive phrase or a group ending with a verb, should be pointed from the predicate by a comma. There are cases of the kind even in newspapers, which in general are economical of points; but the rule in its categorical form is misleading. Such

Dead Rules for Dead English

3

subjects do not always require the comma; when they do, it is very often because of clumsy construction.

By a natural association, the dead rules are commonly illustrated by dead specimens. To exemplify the law that one must use the semicolon between sentence members containing commas, a current book gives this:

He was courteous, not cringing, to superiors; affable, but not familiar, to equals; and kind, but not condescending, to inferiors.

The punctuation fits the words; but since nobody today would write such a sentence, the example and rule seem remote from life. Such a sentence ought to be cited only by way of warning.

There is a widespread and wholesome objection to anything in words or pointing that suggests stiffness or self-consciousness. Save where formality is in order, written English has approached the conversational manner. In punctuation as in structure, students should be taught to use the language of the day. But too often they are given sets of rules which could be rigidly applied only to dead English.

No SINGLE "WORKING PRINCIPLE”

According to one recent writer, the "working principle" of punctuation is emphasis. Another maintains that the fundamental consideration is clearness. Others insist on uniformity, or on the use of the smallest possible variety of points.

Though all of these views are enlightening, they lack perspective. Emphasis needs to be considered in questions of pointing, but as a single working principle is insufficient. Questions of emphasis are also questions of

clearness, the two considerations being inseparable in practice. And both clearness and emphasis are essentially linked with usage. A period is effective as a signal of completion for the sentence because it is a customary mark for the purpose.

There is no single working principle. In cases of punctuation it is necessary to apply one or more of several considerations. There are questions of custom, clearness, emphasis, movement, economy, variety-sometimes even of appearance on the page. By force of custom, points are signals which indicate certain relations. At the same time they are suspensive marks which check movement and suggest certain weights of emphasis. Even the consideration of variety is important. Noticeably monotonous pointing is a symptom of lifeless structure.

To experienced writers who do their own pointing, all of this is familiar. They know how to punctuate clearly, economically, and effectively for their purposes. They also know that good pointing depends on good structure. But nobody has recently taken the trouble to put this knowledge into accessible form.

TWO RULING TRADITIONS

The current textbooks and chapters on punctuation are still governed by two traditions, both of them legislative and formalistic. The formulation of theory has been left almost exclusively to printers and to writers of school textbooks. Their most prominent aim has been "correctness"; their method has been prescription.

If properly understood, correctness is of course a legitimate aim. It implies, for one thing, the use of marks within the limits of general and special conventions. But when applied to matters of art, "correctness" is mislead