Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 ‘You speak a language that I understand not’: myths and realities
- 2 ‘Now, sir, what is your text?’ Knowing the sources
- 3 ‘In print I found it’: Shakespearean graphology
- 4 ‘Know my stops’: Shakespearean punctuation
- 5 ‘Speak the speech’: Shakespearean phonology
- 6 ‘Trippingly upon the tongue’: Shakespearean pronunciation
- 7 ‘Think on my words’: Shakespearean vocabulary
- 8 ‘Talk of a noun and a verb’: Shakespearean grammar
- 9 ‘Hear sweet discourse’: Shakespearean conversation
- Epilogue – ‘Your daring tongue’: Shakespearean creativity
- Appendix: An A-to-Z of Shakespeare's false friends
- Notes
- References and further reading
- Index
4 - ‘Know my stops’: Shakespearean punctuation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 ‘You speak a language that I understand not’: myths and realities
- 2 ‘Now, sir, what is your text?’ Knowing the sources
- 3 ‘In print I found it’: Shakespearean graphology
- 4 ‘Know my stops’: Shakespearean punctuation
- 5 ‘Speak the speech’: Shakespearean phonology
- 6 ‘Trippingly upon the tongue’: Shakespearean pronunciation
- 7 ‘Think on my words’: Shakespearean vocabulary
- 8 ‘Talk of a noun and a verb’: Shakespearean grammar
- 9 ‘Hear sweet discourse’: Shakespearean conversation
- Epilogue – ‘Your daring tongue’: Shakespearean creativity
- Appendix: An A-to-Z of Shakespeare's false friends
- Notes
- References and further reading
- Index
Summary
Also falling under the heading of graphology is the set of orthographic practices that we call English punctuation. The conventions have taken a millennium to develop, and (as Internet innovations show) the process is not over yet. From a time (in Old English) when manuscripts were almost totally unpunctuated, apart from a few indications of voice inflection, we have moved to a stage where a full use of punctuation is a mark of education. Grammars and publishing houses formulate rules governing usage, and we struggle to follow them – struggle, because the recommendations of different grammarians and publishers do not always agree, even within British (as opposed to American) English. Punctuation is not so much a system, more a set of practices of varying rigour.
Why is punctuation such a problem? Because a huge amount of linguistic responsibility has been placed on a very small number of marks:
the period (.), also called a point or full stop
the semi-colon (;)
the colon (:)
the comma (,)
single (‘ ’) or double (“ ”) inverted commas (especially in UK usage), also called quotation marks or quote marks
the hyphen (-)
the dash (–)
parentheses (), also called round brackets
the question mark (?)
the exclamation mark or (especially US usage) exclamation point (!)
the apostrophe (')
Leaving aside more specialized features, such as square brackets ([]) and obelisks (§), this amounts to not even a dozen marks, and these have to perform a range of overlapping functions.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Think On My WordsExploring Shakespeare's Language, pp. 64 - 99Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008