Changes In Punctuation
Changes in punctuation:
Quotation marks are the most recently added form of punctuation, having been created in the late seventeenth century.
Before 1700:
The earliest alphabetic writing had no capitalization, no spaces, no vowels and few punctuation marks.
By 1400s, there was an increase use of punctuation marks such as brackets and a forward slash ‘/’ to indicate a brief pause. (Known also as the oblique)
The invention and development of printing encouraged people to develop standardised systems of punctuation.
By the late 1500s, the oblique had been replaced by a comma, and the development of a full stop to mark the end of a section.
Late 17th century writers tried to establish precise rules for the use of commas, semicolons, and colons. Their principles were: Semicolon indicted a pause twice as long as that for a comma, and a colon indicated a pause twice as long as for a semicolon.
After 1700:
Early 1700s: the use of semi-colons and colons were common features to separate long, extended clauses, to create more sentence complexity.
Question marks and apostrophes (to mark ellipsis) are being used.
Late 1700s: exclamation marks begin to be used. Uncertainty around whether the question mark should be used for indirect questions or only direct questions.
18th Century it was decided to use the question mark only for direct questions.
20th Century:
Evolving technologies have seen the minimisation of punctuation, since in typewritten texts in 1960s and 1970s, it became economically desirable. The use of a full-stop or comma used up the same length of expensive ribbon (ink) as a capital letter.
In modern prose, dashes are replacing semi-colons.
New punctuation marks are being introduced in today’s texts. For example, the use of bullets for items is on the verge of being introduced as a new punctuation mark, and the use of ‘!?’ to indicate a tone of shocked disbelief is widely used in informal texts.
Quotation marks are the most recently added form of punctuation, having been created in the late seventeenth century.
Before 1700:
The earliest alphabetic writing had no capitalization, no spaces, no vowels and few punctuation marks.
By 1400s, there was an increase use of punctuation marks such as brackets and a forward slash ‘/’ to indicate a brief pause. (Known also as the oblique)
The invention and development of printing encouraged people to develop standardised systems of punctuation.
By the late 1500s, the oblique had been replaced by a comma, and the development of a full stop to mark the end of a section.
Late 17th century writers tried to establish precise rules for the use of commas, semicolons, and colons. Their principles were: Semicolon indicted a pause twice as long as that for a comma, and a colon indicated a pause twice as long as for a semicolon.
After 1700:
Early 1700s: the use of semi-colons and colons were common features to separate long, extended clauses, to create more sentence complexity.
Question marks and apostrophes (to mark ellipsis) are being used.
Late 1700s: exclamation marks begin to be used. Uncertainty around whether the question mark should be used for indirect questions or only direct questions.
18th Century it was decided to use the question mark only for direct questions.
20th Century:
Evolving technologies have seen the minimisation of punctuation, since in typewritten texts in 1960s and 1970s, it became economically desirable. The use of a full-stop or comma used up the same length of expensive ribbon (ink) as a capital letter.
In modern prose, dashes are replacing semi-colons.
New punctuation marks are being introduced in today’s texts. For example, the use of bullets for items is on the verge of being introduced as a new punctuation mark, and the use of ‘!?’ to indicate a tone of shocked disbelief is widely used in informal texts.