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A mark of punctuation is used because it has a meaning, and serves a useful, if not an indispensable, purpose in printed language.1 In order to serve such purpose, the meaning of the mark must be thoroughly understood by both the writer and the reader.

The function of marks is twofold:

1. To reveal the real meaning of printed language.

2. To reveal such meaning at a glance.

Marks perform this function in three ways:

1. By breaking up apparent groups of words, which readily form themselves into new groups.

2. By showing the relations between groups.

3. By characterizing a group of words.

Language, both printed and spoken, conveys meaning, not only by the meanings of the words constituting such language, but by the meanings of the relations between the words, used singly or in groups. In spoken language these relations are indicated, at least to a considerable extent, by pauses and by inflections of the voice; in printed language, however, we are compelled to use punctuation to indicate them. As spoken language is generally quite different from written language, marks of punctuation do not always indicate voice-inflections; but, as both marks and inflections express the sense relations between groups of words, they are not infrequently suggestive of each other. For instance, each of the three end-marks groups words into a sentence, and tells what kind of a sentence it follows. Let us illustrate this in a dialogue between a teacher and a pupil:

Pupil. John has gone home.

Teacher. John has gone home? [or]

Teacher. John has gone home!

We call the first sentence a declarative sentence because it makes a declaration. We call the second, regardless of its form, an interrogative sentence because it asks a question (interrogates). We call the third an exclamatory sentence because it expresses surprise (exclamation).

In the oral conversation between the teacher and the pupil the voice would readily indicate the meaning of each sentence; but on the printed page marks of punctuation are necessary to convey the meaning. Thus each mark in these sentences characterizes the kind of sentence it follows, and thus reveals the real meaning of the language.

The meanings of these three marks are so plain that they give little trouble to any reader, even the youngest. Most of the marks that fall within the sentence should convey meanings quite as plainly and quite as readily as do these three end-marks. It is the purpose of our study that they be made to do so, for they are quite as useful as the end-marks.

Marks are used intelligently only when each mark can give an intelligent answer to the reader who, meeting it on the printed page, challenges it with “What do you say to me?” This challenge may be made the supreme test of the value of any mark of punctuation.

The function of marks can best be shown by a study of their uses in illustrative examples:2

1. Respect the rights of children and their mothers will respect you.

No mark is required in this sentence to reveal its real meaning, for that is unmistakable; but almost any reader will momentarily mistake the meaning at the point where it seems to read as if written “the rights of children and of their mothers.” When the reader discovers that “the rights of their mothers” are not referred to, he is like a traveler who has taken the wrong road, and, discovering his mistake, must retrace his steps.

If a mistake has been made in reading this sentence, the reader must go back to the point where the mistake was made, and regroup the words. The process of regrouping the parts of a sentence is both distracting and tiresome when reading silently, and is very awkward when reading aloud.

The mistake is a mistake in grouping, that is in making one group of the words “children and their mothers” when these words are not so grouped by the meaning of the language.

We call “and” a conjunction, that is, a grouping word. It naturally groups together the two words between which it stands, especially if they make sense when so grouped. If these words are not to be thus grouped, the reader will be helped by having notice to this effect at the point where a wrong grouping may be made. We place a sign-board to guide a traveler; and one is equally useful to guide a reader. A mark of punctuation is the reader’s sign-board; and it is to be read for its directions.

As we cannot well discuss at this point in our study the proper mark to use in Sentence 1 we may select the comma, leaving the reason for the selection to be considered later. Thus the sentence written with a sign-board, is as follows:

1–1.3 Respect the rights of children, and their mothers will respect you.

The answer to the challenge, “What do you mean?” put by the reader to the comma in this sentence, would be somewhat like this: “Reader, ‘and’ is not to be followed by a word with the same relation to ‘of’ that ‘children’ sustains to ‘of.’ ” In other words, “and” does not form the very simple group of words that it appears to form without the comma: it forms a new group.

With this notice, the first group is quite automatically formed by the reader; for the meaning of the language up to this point has been fully comprehended, and is not to be supplemented by any word in the and relation to “children.”

In a sentence as simple in its grouping as No. 1, the liability to error is not very great, especially for one who has read much; nor is the readjustment of the thought, in case such a reader has made a mistake, very difficult for him. In more complex sentences, the confusion of ideas becomes more marked, and more difficult of readjustment even by the experienced reader:

2. … Far beyond this group of beautiful hills fell gradually to the plain.

The words in the first line of this sentence, as above printed, group themselves together in a natural manner, forming a definite picture; but, when the reader reaches the first word in the second line, he discovers that a subject must be found for “fell,” for he has made a wrong grouping. It is probable that most readers would read to the end of the sentence in search of a clue to the proper grouping, then turn back to the beginning, and regroup the words after a careful study of their relations. Although the sense is thus easily obtained, the process of regrouping is distracting.

The trouble arises from the fact that the words in the first line naturally fall into a group which makes good sense, but not the sense intended by the writer. A mark (sign-board) is needed to show the reader that the natural grouping is not the correct grouping. We mean by the “natural” grouping that grouping which arises from reading the words in the usual way, thus making “this group of beautiful hills” the object of “beyond.” In other words, the natural meaning is the apparent meaning.

When the apparent meaning is not the real meaning, the reader is momentarily misled—that is, he gets off the real line of thought, just as a traveler gets off the right road.

With a sign-board the sentence will read as follows:

2–1. Far beyond, this group of beautiful hills fell gradually to the plain.

In this detached sentence we do not know the object of “beyond.” It would, however, be furnished by what preceded it in the context; and yet the liability to error in reading the complete, unpunctuated sentence would still exist. Let us supply the context:

2–2. In the morning we saw in the east a group of hills, the crest of which we reached at noonday. Far beyond, this group of beautiful hills fell gradually to the plain.

The context furnishes the object of “beyond,” which is “the crest.”