Читать книгу Why We Punctuate; or, Reason Versus Rule in the Use of Marks - William Livingston Klein - Страница 8

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The names of the principal marks were given to them by the Greek grammarians, the name of each mark being the name of the group of words with which the mark was used. The group of words which we call a sentence, they called a period. They arbitrarily marked its end by a dot, and called the dot also a “period.” We retain the name of the mark. They called one of the largest divisions of a sentence a limb, and set it off with a mark called the “kolon,” which means a limb. We retain the name of the mark in our word colon. The same is true of the mark we still call a comma. The semicolon is a mark of later date; and, as its name implies, it falls between the comma and the colon in its character and use.