PULPIT, an elevated place or inclosed stage in a church, in which the preacher stands. It is called also a desk. Pulpits in modern churches are of wood, but in ancient times some were Made of stone, others of marble, and richly carved.
PUN, a species of wit which has been gravely pronounced low ;" but surely it is both fastidious and cynical thus to define it. A pun is an expression in which two different applications of a word present an odd or ludicrous ides ; but it does not necessarily follow that the ideas to which it gives rise shall be low, that is, vulgar. That they often are so, we admit ; but he must be of an incorrigibly saturuine disposition who would declare that all the mirth-inspiring puns which the inimitable Hood draws from his ex haustless quiver are to be accounted low. An inveterate punster, who is constantly on the watch for opportunities to torture every expression into a quibble, is not to be tolerated in decent society ; but it would be bard indeed if the laws of de corum were so strict, as to debar us from cheering the dull realities of life with an occasional scintillation of wit, even at the hszard of perpetrating a bad pun.
PUNCTUkTION, in grammar, fiat discriminating- use of certain marks adopted to distinguish the clauses of a period, sometimes with reference to the sense, and at others to the grammatical construction. Thus, a full point (.) closes a perfect sentence ; a colon ( ) indicates an adjunct ; a semicolon (; ) distinguishes its principal part ; and a comma (,) parts subordinate to the semicolon. A sentence, which may in clude several periods, terminates a branch of the subject or argument. A question is indicated by (?); an ex chinistion by (!) ; and it is sometimes convenient to include a collateral circum stance in a parenthesis ( ).—The an cients were altogether unacquainted with punctuation.