Apart from the utilitarian conformity for printers of having common symbols and forms of expression for their productions, grammar became in the eighteenth and nineteenth century a science, a common shared body of knowledge. It also became a science in terms of individuals who sought to popularise systems of their own devising, the use of …
Cecelia Watson, in her book Semicolon, references some innovations in punctuation that did not catch on. An example is the punctus percontativus, or rhetorical question mark. Using the symbol of a reversed question mark, it indicated that the question it preceded was rhetorical in intent. In a piece of writing that I enjoyed, Watson descriptively …
When I discovered the existence of Cecelia Watson’s book Semicolon, it became an automatic purchase. Semicolon, subtitled How a misunderstood punctuation mark can improve your writing, enrich your reading and even change your life provides an overview of the history and usage of a singularly misunderstood piece of punctuation. Having commenced an investigation in order …
For those who are still communicating with words rather than emojis or memes, this Mental Floss article borrows from Lifehacker and provides some tips regarding the use of the subjective ‘who’ or the objective ‘whom’ in sentences. The article starts out by observing that the words are not interchangeable: In casual messages with friends or …
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