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A History Of Punctuation

Chronology of changes
Century Punctuation devices Introduced by
Before 200 The Ancient scholars (Roman/Greek) used no punctuation at all or
BC even spaces between the words
200 BC First recognised formal system of punctuation based on 3 symbols, Greek scholar
to serve as short pause (comma), long pause (colon/semicolon) Aristophanes of
and a very long pause (full stop) Byzantium, librarian at
Alexandria
7th C Use of spaces to separate words Unknown scholar
8th C Illiterate Europe after the fall of Rome
Late 8th C Charlemagne summons the help of Alcuin. Charlemagne, King of
the Franks,
Late 8th C Alcuin sets up a school for monks and thus establishes a consistent English deacon and
writing style for all scribes. Caroline minuscules (lower case scholar Alcuin of York
letters) are a result of this, much legible, avoiding previous cursive
styles. Alcuin also instituted:
• Uniform spelling
• Use of capitals to begin sentences
• Interword separation (Use of spaces between words)
• Arranging of text into sentences and paragraphs
• Some Standard punctuation marks
11th C Hyphen, to indicate a word was continued on the next line (used in Unknown scholar
Spanish but not in English)
Late 14th C Johann Gutenberg invents the printing press in 1436 (Caxton J. Gutenberg, German
prints the first book in 1474 in Kent: The Recuyell of the William caxton, Kent,
Historyes of Troye ) printer
16th C Question mark, possibly in resemblance to the capital letter Q (?), Unknown
from the Latin word quaestio
Late 16th C Standardisation of enjambment (meaning is continued without Shakespeare, actor,
pause) poems and playwright
Standardisation of caesura (//) to show pause (nowadays used by
teachers to mean: change of paragraph)
Late 16th C Syntactical punctuation: punctuation is vital to allow Ben Johnson
understanding.
17th C Standardisation of the punctuation system that has lasted until the 21st century:
• Space left blank between words.
• The indentation of the first line of a new paragraph
• Uppercase (majuscule) at the beginning of sentence, name or title.
17th & 18th Quotation marks, apostrophe, dash and exclamation point are
C added to the basic set of punctuation marks in consistent use.
Late 18th "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones", written remarkably without a Timothy Dexter
single punctuation mark. The second edition is published with a
page full of punctuation marks, for the reader to use at his
discretion.
From Ampersand (&), asterisk (*), bullet, commercial @, number or These are not punctuation
different currency sign (£) marks but typographical
centuries symbols
(8th C on)
During the English language constantly evolving: spelling changes, new words, technology terms,
20th C scientific term, colloquialisms; even punctuation marks: the interrobang (symbol created by
superimposing ? and !) which received some attention at first but died in the 60s.
quesclamation mark, is a nonstandard English-language punctuation mark intended to
combine the functions of the question mark (also called the interrogative point) and the
exclamation mark or exclamation point (known in printers' jargon as the bang)

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