Authors, Professors, Publishers

15

and that a comma is employed to show the omission of a word. Both uses are so hopelessly moribund that "authority" for them doesn't signify. Another manual, bearing three mighty names, requires a comma to separate a "long" subject from its verba pernicious principle and almost a dead one.

With regard to the influence of authors upon pointing, Mr. Ward's opinion is interesting but extreme.

Authors have never made the least contribution to the art. (Don't be offended by the rashness of such a sweeping negative. Ponder the statement calmly for several months before denying it.) No impression is more consistently conveyed by our Compositions than that we refer to literature for the standard of punctuation in the same way that we do for diction and syntax. "Some writers" do thus and so, we are told. What "some writers" do is not of the least importance. The vast majority of them are following as best they can a system that other authors never originated. If some of them do peculiar things, it is criminal to call the attention of secondary students to their oddities. That system has always been devised and amended, not by authors or professors, but by publishers.

It is quite true that punctuation is practically the creation of publishers. From Nicolas Jenson and Aldus Manutius to Joseph Moxon, from Moxon to Wilson and De Vinne, the greatest influence for conservatism and for progress has been exerted by printers and publishers. But is it certain that neither "authors nor professors" have had any influence at all? Is it publishers that have introduced suspension periods to the American public in novels, magazine articles, advertisements, and moving-picture screens? The influence of authors or professors has been felt in the obstinacy of certain obsessions, probably in the extended use of the dash, certainly in the use of the hyphen. De Vinne says of hyphenation (Correct Composition, p. 6): “All

the changes begin with writers. Dictionary makers (Webster excepted) claim that they do not originate changes, and that they record only those that have been generally accepted."

Stripped of its universality, Mr. Ward's contention is right. So far as uniformity is in order, a working code for ordinary use should be based on the practice of good editors and publishers. But the possibilities of uniformity can easily be exaggerated. Though the pointing of an isolated two-clause sentence may be subjected to a fixed rule, the same words may be used in such context as to require quite different pointing. This matter will necessarily be mentioned repeatedly in subsequent chapters.

Concerning the value of proper instruction in punctuation, Mr. Ward speaks his mind emphatically:

Any teacher who has labored systematically to teach the principles of punctuation, who has fought vigorously and waged war for years, knows that nothing else he can do produces a tithe of such fundamental benefit.

CONSTANCE M. ROURKE. The Rationale of Punctuation. Educational Review, vol. 50 (October, 1915), pp. 246ff.

A suggestive article in which emphasis is offered as the working principle of punctuation. Miss Rourke objects to the "is used" formula and to the custom of presenting punctuation by syntactical rules with detached sentences for illustration.

The rules are given: the student must first memorize them. When he writes he must reduce the forms of his expression to their grammatical construction, and then punctuate or not according to their conformity to the types named in his text. The whole abstract process lies definitely apart from the natural creative expression which training in writing might be expected to cul

Emphasis and Clearness

17

tivate; its best success can only be a hardening of further practise within certain unusual forms.

His [the student's] final method in punctuation will be at once simpler and more complex than if he followed the present-day rhetorics. It will be simpler because instead of abstract, often obscure and ambiguous rules, he has in hand a working principle, that of emphasis, whose variations are likewise simple and natural. It will be more complex because he must always discover the changing demands of the ideas, facts, or feelings which he wishes to express; his pointing must be conditioned by the immediate and often complex substance of his meaning. He can never acquire a merely mechanical technique. But at least his problem will be single; he will be wholly concerned with expression itself. Punctuation will have become part of his creative medium.

S. A. LEONARD.. The Rationale of Punctuation: a Criticism. Educational Review, vol. 51 (January, 1916), pp. 89-92.

In this answer to Miss Rourke's essay, Mr. Leonard correctly maintains that emphasis cannot be considered a sufficient guiding principle. In his view the dominant consideration is clearness. He says of punctuation:

Is not its principal purpose, then, fullest clearness: to obviate so far as possible any misreading of the sentence-to fulfil that aim which George Meredith beautifully states of a clear style, that it "may be read out currently at a first glance"?

It is obvious that clearness and emphasis may be separated in theory; they cannot be distinguished in practice. The view which insists on emphasis and the one which insists on clearness throw light on two sides of the same thing.

WILLIAM LIVINGSTON KLEIN. Why We Punctuate; or, Reason versus Rule in the Use of Marks. The Lancet Publishing Company, Minneapolis, 1916.

A revision of a work ("By a Journalist") published in 1896 under the same quaint title. Mr. Klein emphasizes the grouping function of the punctuation marks, insists on reason rather than convention, and treats interrelated marks together. But these merits are counterbalanced by the use of puzzling examples, by a neglect of the relation between pointing and movement, by the use and recommendation of too many parenthetical commas, and by the recommendation of rigid rules for parenthetical commas, curves, and dashes. The rules for parenthetical points are based not on usage but on grammatical distinctions and on the "inherent meanings" of the marks. Mr. Klein is of the opinion that parenthetical matter "with grammatical connection" (established by preposition or conjunction) should be set off by commas ordinarily, by dashes when the writer "dashes off the track of his thought for a moment." Groups without grammatical connection he calls "purely parenthetical" matter, to be enclosed in curves. The rule is too rigid. Matter purely parenthetical according to Mr. Klein's definition may be enclosed in curves, dashes, or commas; sometimes not pointed at all. (For the pointing of parenthetical elements see pages 102ff. below.)

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS. Manual of Style, fifth edition. Chicago, 1917.

A reference book of great value, especially for information regarding capitalization, division of words, compound words, italic, and other typographical matters. Punctuation is treated not rhetorically but in legislative fashion, with prescriptions for average cases. With a few exceptions, the rules are applied by the University of Chicago Press "with a certain degree of elasticity."

CHAPTER II

THE NATURE OF PUNCTUATION

PUNCTUATION is defined in the New English Dictionary as "the practice, art, method, or system of inserting points or 'stops' to aid the sense in writing or printing; division of written or printed matter into sentences, clauses, etc., by means of points or stops.

The use of the term to mean a punctuation mark is practically obsolete; and punctuation in the rare sense of observing stops with the voice is aside from the present purpose. Punctuation marks are meant for the eye. Though they may convey suggestions of intonation and vocal pauses, that is not their usual purpose. Their suggestion to the "inner ear" is more difficult than important to estimate.

The list of punctuation marks is sometimes held, as in Webster's New International Dictionary (Appendix XX), to include not only the usual series of marks but also the accents, the dieresis, the cedilla, the caret, the brace, the asterism ( * or **), and the obsolescent series of reference marks beginning with the asterisk.

* *

There will be no attempt in this book, however, to deal with all of these marks. The paragraph sign requires only bare mention, and there need be no further mention of the caret, the brace, ditto marks, leaders, or the asterism. The accent and quantity marks will be omitted, except that the dieresis will require mention as an alternative to the hyphen in certain words. Reference marks will be included only for brief treatment. Otherwise the discussion will be