PU.NCT CATION (ante), the division of any written or pri nted composition into words, phrases, and sentences by certain marks, commonly called punctuation points. This process enables the writer to express his ideas more clearly, and the reader to understand more readily and more fully. Material errors in the arrangement of an author's ideas, and in the order of the phrases in the sentences, have been detected and corrected by the judicious application of a critical punctuation. For a long period after the action of the alphabet into general use, all the words, sentences, and letters of every composition were written continuously, and usually in large capitals at equal distances. :titer this manner: " GOTOTHEANTTHOUSLUGGARDCO.NSIDEIMERWAYS ANDBEWISE." When the writiug was in small letters, it would be given in thi: tashion: " theLordismyshephertlIshallnotwant." By whom the earliest attempts at punctuation were made is not known. The art has been very slowly developed. Some of the most trustworthy writers on archaeology ascribe the earliest attempts to Aristoph anes; others to Thrasymachus, and to various other Grecian scholars several centmals before Christ. But whatever efforts were thus made, they were imperfect and transient. In the 8th c. Charlemagne directed several of the most learned men of that age to revive and remodel these obsolete attempts at punctuation; but with results scarcely more effective or enduring than those whose lost memories they aimed to revive.
Near the close of the 15th c. Aldus Manutius, otherwise known ns Manuzio, Manuzzi, or Manneci, also called Aldus the elder, was an eminent printer and publisher in Venice. In making some of his numerous improvements in the art of printing he became im pressed with the necessity of facilitating the more ready understanding of printed matter. Ile invented and practically applied the main features of that system of punctuation which, with few important changes from time to time, has continued to the present day.
In modern times punctuation is considered one of the most difficult parts of gram mar fully to explain or rightly to understand. Grammarians differ widely in their general roles, and authors differ quite as widely in their application of these rules to particular cases. As to the most important principles, however, there is a very general agreement. Among the various marks and characters employed in this scheme of punc tuation, the period, the colon, the semi-colon, and the comma are the most important and the most frequent. Other marks in use are interrogation and exclamation points, quotation marks. the hyphen, the apostrophe, etc.
The comma, from the Greek xvirr ezy, to cut off, indicates a shorter pause in reading, and demanding usually less notice than any other punctuation point. Under some cir
cumstances, however, it has great importance. Its design and value are readily seen, yet the occasions for its use, from their great number and variety, are most difficult to specify and define. When more than two nouns, adjectives, verbs, or adverbs succeed each other in a series, in either of the elements of a simple sentence, they should each be separated by commas, including, by latest usage, even the last couplet, in which the connecting conjunction is expressed. Many qualifying and explanatory phrases, and adverbs when so used, require a comma before and after them. The name of a person addressed or of anything thus personified, all words and phrases used independently, the members of compound sentences, antithetical and parenthetical words and phrases, each word of a series in the same construction, and words repeated for the sake of emphasis, should be separated before and after by commas. But when words or ideas are arranged in pairs, the comma is placed only after each couplet. The semi-colon is used to separate those members of a compound sentence which demand a longer pause than a comma, or which contain in themselves the principal elements of a sentence, but do not, either of them, individually, fully express the main ideas of the sentence. This point is also used when the members of a compound sentence are antithetical. The colon marks a still longer pause than the semi-colon. It is placed after the address in the commencement of a letter or other communication; as, "My Dear Sir:" "To the Editor of the Galaxy:" This point is also legitimately placed near the close of any long sentence that is not yet completed, especially if two or more semi-colons have immedi ately preceded in the same sentence. The period is placed at the end of every para graph, and of every completed sentence, except when the sentence ends with a question or an exclamation. It is placed also after the titles or other headings of the chapters, and all other important divisions of a volume or other treatise.
To understand fully and to apply in the best manner the principles of punctuation is more difficult from the fact that the best writers and most critical grammarians differ so widely from each other, and even from themselves at different times and in differ ent circumstances. It is, then, impossible to give strict and universal rules for the application of the principal punctuation points. Punctuation demands for its full eluci dation, and its successful application, a quick apprehension, good judgment, a cultivated taste, and an extensive and varied reading.