Читать книгу Why We Punctuate; or, Reason Versus Rule in the Use of Marks - William Livingston Klein - Страница 7

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We endeavored to show in Chapter I that the fundamental purpose of punctuation is to group by means of marks words whose relations in the absence of marks would be either easily mistaken or not quickly apprehended.

When to use a mark, and what mark to use, are determined by reason or by convention.

Some of the conventions that determine a punctuation familiar to most people, together with some of the problems that confront us in our study, are exhibited in the punctuation of the following sentence:

5A. Mr. Smith came to the city in 1872, and located at 1872 Wabash Avenue. He brought with him 1,872 horses, valued at $187,200.00.

How does punctuation enable the reader to obtain the meaning at one point in the above sentence, and so to group the language (figures) at another point that he can apprehend the meaning at a glance? Because of well-nigh universal usage, the above date and street numbers are read eighteen hundred seventy-two; but the same number in the next sentence is read one thousand eight hundred seventy-two. As we all know, in arithmetical notation three figures form a group, the groups so formed being named units, thousands, millions, etc. It is therefore evident that, in reading a number containing two or more such groups, the eye will be aided if the groups are indicated by some mark. (We here use the comma and the period for this purpose.) Although the left-hand group of a number may not be full, a figure in that group takes the name of the group, and so we mark it off. Thus we use commas in two of the numbers in our example, one of which (1,872) has only one figure in the second (thousand) group. This we call punctuation by reason, for we thus point off natural groups.

We do not use the comma to group the figures in the same number (1872) used in two other places in the above example. Because date and street numbers of four figures are read in groups of two figures each the eye readily does the grouping, and a mark is not needed as an aid in the grouping. This is also punctuation by reason.

In the fourth number in our example we use a comma to do one grouping, and a period to make another (the cents) group. We call the use of the period in this number conventional punctuation.

Many printing-offices do not punctuate a number containing less than five figures. Such a rule would call for 9999 and 10,000. This is purely arbitrary punctuation. Our problem is to find, as far as possible, a reason for the use of every mark, and to point out what seems to us good conventional usage in punctuation for which we can find no reason.