Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The use of standard marks and signs in writing and printing to separate words into sentences, clauses, and phrases in order to clarify meaning.
- n. The marks so used.
- n. The act or an instance of punctuating.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In writing and printing, a pointing off or separation of one part from another by arbitrary marks; specifically, the division of a composition into sentences and parts of sentences by the use of marks indicating intended differences of effect by differences of form. The points used for punctuation exclusively are the period or full-stop, the colon, the semicolon, and the comma. (See
point , n., 11 .) The interrogation- and exclamation-points serve also for punctuation in the place of one or another of these, while having a special rhetorical effect of their own; and the dash is also used, either alone or in conjunction with one of the preceding marks, in some cases where the sense or the nature of the pause required can thereby be more clearly indicated. (Seeparenthesis .) The modern system of punctuation was gradually developed after the introduction of printing, primarily through the efforts of Aldus Manutius and his family. In ancient writing the words were at first run together continuously; afterward they were separated by spaces, and sometimes by dots or other marks, which were made to serve some of the purposes of modern punctuation, and were retained in early printing. Long after the use of the present points became established, they were so indiscriminately employed that, if closely followed, they are often a hindrance rather than an aid in reading and understanding the text. There is still much uncertainty and arbitrariness in punctuation, but its chief office is now generally understood to be that of facilitating a clear comprehension of the sense. Close punctuation, characterized especially by the use of many commas, was common in English in the eighteenth century, and is the rule in present French usage: but open punctuation, characterized by the avoidance of all pointing not clearly required by the construction, now prevails in the best English usage. In some cases, as in certain legal papers, title-pages, etc., punctuation is wholly omitted. - n. In zoology, the punctures of a punctate surface.
Wiktionary
- n. A set of symbols and marks which are used to clarify meaning in text by separating strings of words into clauses, phrases and sentences.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Gram.) The act or art of punctuating or pointing a writing or discourse; the art or mode of dividing literary composition into sentences, and members of a sentence, by means of points, so as to elucidate the author's meaning.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the use of certain marks to clarify meaning of written material by grouping words grammatically into sentences and clauses and phrases
- n. something that makes repeated and regular interruptions or divisions
- n. the marks used to clarify meaning by indicating separation of words into sentences and clauses and phrases
Etymologies
- From Medieval Latin punctuatio ("a marking with points, a writing, agreement"), from punctuare ("to mark with points, settle"); see punctuate. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Now,. most people could figure that out,. still my punctuation is as you say not perfect.”
“On this Mr. Everett remarks, "now the points, commonly so called, have nothing to do with the division of a sentence into its members, or with what we call punctuation; but Mr. English intended to intimate, that according to the accents, the verse should be divided as he proposes." (p. 110, of Mr. Everett's work.)”
“The system of pointing ( "punctuation" derives from the Latin word punctus ` point ') is too valuable.”
“Latto: In “Our Forgotten Constitution: A Bicentennial Comment,” 97 Yale L.J. 281 (1987), Akhil Amar shows that the printed copy of the Constitution that was distributed to the states for ratification, differed in punctuation, spelling and capitalization from the engrossed (handwritten) parchment signed by the delegates to the Convention in Philadelphia, which is the version now enshrined in the National Archives.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Error in Many Versions of the United States Constitution
“In “Our Forgotten Constitution: A Bicentennial Comment,” 97 Yale L.J. 281 (1987), Akhil Amar shows that the printed copy of the Constitution that was distributed to the states for ratification, differed in punctuation, spelling and capitalization from the engrossed (handwritten) parchment signed by the delegates to the Convention in Philadelphia, which is the version now enshrined in the National Archives.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Error in Many Versions of the United States Constitution
“See if they'll throw in punctuation for dummies while you're at it.”
“Watkins says that fashions in punctuation change rapidly.”
Barriers to Reading Comprehension « Literacy Articles « Articles « Literacy News
“Always end a sentence in punctuation of some sort.”
Superhero Nation: how to write superhero novels and comic books » David’s Second Review Forum
“Remember, punctuation is always at the end of the dialogue and on the inside of the quotes.”
Superhero Nation: how to write superhero novels and comic books » David’s Second Review Forum
“Thinking you can write well without knowing the rules of punctuation is like an architect thinking he can design a building without knowing the principles of physics and engineering.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘punctuation’.
-
SCIE - natural language processing
disambiguation, smoothing, log-linear model, ambiguity, EM algorithm, Markov model, anaphora, estimation, discourse level, parsing, semantic level, machine learning and 332 more...
-
Language
word, sentence, novel, book, novella, vignette, memoir, anthology, paragraph, stanza, poem, haiku and 123 more...
-
SCIE - publications
The vocabulary of scientific paper submission
enclose, resource, meaningful, margin, embedded, publisher, mentor, clip, spelling, appendix, gloss, refer and 188 more...
-
kat's words
ecumenical, cacophony, clatter, marimba, bamboo, saffron, slice, mercurial, pomegranate, cranky, slipshod, scritch and 511 more...
-
2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
-
Things I Have Drawn on my Wall
All are life size!
words, names, scribble, lion, komodo dragon, tiger, elephant, polar bear, grizzly bear, smiley, sword, dagger and 47 more...
-
words for evolution&paleontology
polymorphism, paraphyletic, monophyletic, stasis, mutation, drift, diversity, darwinian, lamarkian, bambachian, convergence, homoplasy and 11 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for punctuation.
chained_bear Yes, that was the original joke, but the book title is something else. Also roots doesn't mean the same thing in the U.S. as it does in Australia (or the U.K.? dunno), so the joke doesn't work here. Jul 21, 2008
johnmperry The original joke was "Eats, roots, shoots, and leaves." Jul 21, 2008
bilby Thanks Mia. Jul 21, 2008
mialuthien "Dear Jack, I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy – will you let me be yours? – Jill."
And:
"Dear Jack, I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart I can be forever happy. Will you let me be? – Yours, Jill."
From Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss.
:) Jul 21, 2008
johnmperry From my schooldays:
King Charles I walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off.
->
King Charles I walked and talked. Half an hour after his head was cut off. Jul 21, 2008
shevek
There's no punctuation in the Shakespeare, so I suppose one could read it either:1) Go, get him surgeons!
2) Go get him, surgeons!
Watch out, or I'll sic my Shakespearian surgeons on you!
Jul 17, 2008
trivet What about the wombat? Jul 16, 2008
plethora I cannot take credit for that coinage, I'm afraid :( Jul 16, 2008
bilby Let's not mention wombats. Jul 16, 2008
kewpid I guess an estranged father would be a sperm donor? How cold :| Jul 15, 2008
frogapplause I know someone who refers to her estranged mother as "The Incubator". Jul 15, 2008
chained_bear We used to say maternal unit. It's shorter. Jul 15, 2008
mialuthien Female parental unit! May I add it to my words, Plethora? That's so adorable. Jul 15, 2008
plethora My female parental unit bought me that lovely book for Christmas :) Jul 15, 2008
mialuthien These are really some nice ones. And I've read that clever little book, Dontcry! You've probably got it, too. Jul 15, 2008
dontcry A panda eats shoots and leaves.
A panda eats, shoots, and leaves.
Jul 14, 2008
chained_bear There was that one about ... some Russian leader renowned for his cruelty ... wish I could remember which one ... whose wife allegedly intercepted a note he had written to his chief of police,
"Pardon impossible. To be sent to Siberia."
And changed it to read:
"Pardon. Impossible to be sent to Siberia."
Surely that's apocryphal, and also it's kind of lame compared with the other two on this page so far. Jul 14, 2008
chained_bear There was that one about ... some Russian leader renowned for his cruelty ... wish I could remember which one ... whose wife allegedly intercepted a note he had written to his chief of police,
"Pardon impossible. To be sent to Siberia."
And changed it to read:
"Pardon. Impossible to be sent to Siberia."
Surely that's apocryphal, and also it's kind of lame compared with the other two on this page so far. Jul 14, 2008
mialuthien That's a good one! I'm sure there are more. Jul 14, 2008
bilby My librarian gave us this barbershop motto in about Grade 4:
What do you think
I shave you for sixpence
and give you a drink
Redub:
What?! Do you think
I shave you for sixpence?
AND give you a drink?! Jul 14, 2008
mialuthien As evinced here:
1. A woman, without her man, is nothing.
2. A woman: without her, man is nothing. Jul 14, 2008