Write for Business - Blog

Hear is a verb meaning "to perceive by the ear." Here is an adverb meaning "of or in this place."

(From Write for Business, page 232, and Proofreader's Guide PDF, page 44)

Objective case describes a noun used as a direct object, an indirect object, or an object of a preposition.

The delete key can give writers nightmares.

(Nightmares is the direct object of can give; writers is the indirect object.)

But writing without a delete key is also scary.

(Delete key is the object of the preposition, without.)

(From Write for Business, page 242, and Proofreader's Guide PDF, page 54)

Stories help us make sense of who we are and what we know.

I mention this not to wax philosophical - far from it. I simply want you to appreciate the power of stories when it comes to understanding. I, for one, have never truly understood mathematics. Part of my problem was how it was taught, as a series of independent courses - basic math, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and so forth - each with its own set of facts and formulas. I could never make any connections.

Neil Postman in one of his last books suggested that the best way to teach mathematics may be to give it a narrative structure - tell the story of math from its beginnings. In this way, even a "mathephobe" like me could at the very least pay the discipline more respect (I do like a good story), and, perhaps, even attempt to improve my understanding of it.

This blog post is for all of you who have never been quite sure about another subject - punctuation. You may know some of the basics (just as I do with math), but you're probably not quite sure how the whole system works and why. So what follows is a very brief story about punctuation - a narrative that may help you better understand how our system of "pointing," as it was once called, came to be.

Very Early On
According to Lynne Truss, author of a popular book on punctuation, the earliest marks helped actors and chanters know when to pause through parts of a lengthy text. (We're talking during the first 1,500 years or so.) An example of early punctuation credited to Aristophanes of Byzantium involved a three-part system of single points at three different heights on the line - indicating to speakers when to breath for long, not-so-long, and short speeches.

In truth, however, punctuation was scarce in ancient manuscripts. Some manuscripts were written in all capital letters with no space between words and no punctuation. Truss says these texts "look to the modern eye like a word search puzzle."

Printed Texts
It wasn't until the 14^th and 15^th centuries, with the invention of the printing press, that standardized punctuation became important. As Thayer Watkins says, "Prior to printing, punctuation was 'light and haphazard,'" yet even with the printing press, any true semblance of order was a long way off.

According to Watkins, William Claxton (1474), the first printer of books in English, used three marks: the stroke (/) for marking word groups, the colon (:) for marking distinct pauses, and the period for marking the end of sentences and brief pauses.

In Tyndale's Gospels (1535), some aspects of modern punctuation were forming in that the practice of using the period for marking brief pauses was eliminated, the comma replaced the stroke, and the semicolon was reintroduced. (It was used in some ancient texts as a question mark.)

Establishing More Order
Watkins notes that writers in the early 17^th century appeared to use colons, semicolons, and commas interchangeably. Then later in the century, writers tried to standardize the use of these marks "on the principle that a semicolon indicated a pause twice as long as that for a comma, and a colon indicated a pause twice as long as a semicolon."

Here's a bit more about the semicolon, care of a Slate article by Paul Collins, that you might find interesting: By the mid-19^th century, the semicolon was being used less and less, until some critics called it the neglected punctuation mark. The invention of the telegraph didn't help, because it cost more to send a message with a semicolon than with a single-type mark such as a period. It has been playing catch-up ever since.

The question mark was initially called a note of interrogation. People at first wondered if it should be used to note a direct or an indirect questions, but by the 18^th century it became the mark after direct questions.

The exclamation mark came into being as a note of admiration. One theory says it comes from the Latin word for joy, IO, written with the I above the O.

The most recent mark? That honor belongs to quotation marks, coming into being in the late 17^th century. (Not a fast-forming system, is it?) Are there any new marks on the horizon? Watkins suggests that the bulleted list (thanks to word-processing programs) may soon become recognized as a standard punctuation mark.

Final Thought: The use of punctuation, as integral to making meaning, rather than as an aid to oral reading and chanting, is how we think of punctuation today. But in reality punctuation still serves both lords, as Truss so effectively explains in this quotation: "On the page, punctuation performs its [modern] grammatical function, but in the mind of the reader it does more than that. It tells the reader how to hum the tune."

So this is my story for now, and I'm sticking to it.

- Dave Kemper

Possessive case describes a noun that shows possession or ownership.

An employee's desk is a construction site.

Note: Be sure to follow the rules of punctuation when it comes to possessives, especially the placement of apostrophes in plural words or words expressing joint ownership.

(From Write for Business, page 242, and Proofreader's Guide PDF, page 54)

Healthful means "promoting good health"; healthy means "possessing good health."

She has a healthy heart because of her healthful diet.

(From Write for Business, page 232, and Proofreader's Guide PDF, page 44)