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Slate has started a three-part series about the history (ancient history, to be precise) of various forms of punctuation and typographical marks. It talks about the origin, in a motley way, of the period, colon, and comma. Once you see how text was originally recorded (for reading aloud--people did not read silently) you will be SO grateful for punctuation!
The so-called intermediate (·), subordinate (.), and full (˙) dots, signaling short, medium, and long pauses respectively, were placed after corresponding rhetorical units called the komma, kolon, and periodos. Though it took centuries for these marks of punctuation to crystallize into the familiar visual forms we know today, their modern names are not so far removed: "comma," "colon," and "period."
This series is taken from the book Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks which I will be watching for at my local library!
The so-called intermediate (·), subordinate (.), and full (˙) dots, signaling short, medium, and long pauses respectively, were placed after corresponding rhetorical units called the komma, kolon, and periodos. Though it took centuries for these marks of punctuation to crystallize into the familiar visual forms we know today, their modern names are not so far removed: "comma," "colon," and "period."
This series is taken from the book Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks which I will be watching for at my local library!
