the.com/punctuation
the tiny marks that decide whether you eat grandma or eat, grandma
means The system of marks—commas, periods, question marks and the rest—used to separate written words into sentences and clauses and to clarify meaning.
from From Latin 'punctuationem,' a noun built on 'punctus,' meaning 'a point' or 'a pricked dot' (from 'pungere,' to prick or pierce—the same root that gives us 'puncture' and 'point'). The image is literal: early scribes marked pauses and stops by pricking little dots into the text. So the word still carries its origin in its body—every period is a tiny puncture in the line.
- roman writing
- Ancient Latin had no spaces or punctuation at all
- interrobang
- A 1962 mark combining question and exclamation, mostly forgotten
- comma war
- A missing comma cost a dairy 5 million dollars in court
- newest mark
- The question mark dates only to the 8th century
- period decline
- Texters now read full stops as cold or angry
the great punctuation debate — oxford comma controversy dividing writers and editors worldwide since the 1800s
semicolon usage decline — millennials use semicolons 80% less than previous generations, 2010s studies